Jabberwock
by windyfiend
Summary: Alice is living a peaceful, happy life on the farm. It seems nothing could ever hurt them again – until the unexpected appearance of a familiar face proves that Alice's recurring nightmare may not be just a horrific fairy tale.
1. Little One

**A/N:** **Due to ffn's awful formatting restrictions and frustrating methods of posting and updating chapters, I'm forced to abandon this site.** **Find me on {archiveofourown . org} and on Tumblr under the same username!**

Edited and updated versions of all my existing fic can be found on ao3. I strongly recommend reading there instead, as the versions here are the raw first drafts. As of now, 2/17/20, I'm still posting new fic there. I love you guys, thank you so much for your reads and reviews, and I adore the DM system in which I've had a lot of great conversations, but this site has given me one too many headaches to keep up with it. Hope to see you around somewhere soon!

This story is part 2 of the Thirium Souls series. Part 1 is _A Strange Comet_ _._ Cover image by the great a-cat-and-a-world on tumblr!

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

Darkness pressed in, cold and deep. It flooded her lungs. It roared in her ears. Alice couldn't see her own hands, couldn't tell whether her eyes were open or shut. Her arms flung into emptiness; she strained her sight; she groped, desperate, in the dark for something, anything to touch, to hold onto.

"Kara?"

Her whisper echoed, cavernous and hollow in a dead, empty room. Her fingers grasped for an absent hand. Her voice was a shuddering whisper. "Kara I'm scared."

The only response was a distant shockwave - the deep, deafening _pulse_ of a monstrous heart.

 _th-THWOOM_

She clapped hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut. A sob choked. _"Kara where are you..."_

She jumped at a clattering, resounding _bang_ , close in the room with her. A sliver of red light flashed in the dark. It widened, a thin rectangle, then squealed shut with a _clap_ of metal - a door, blowing in the wind. A door to the outside.

She took a small step, eyes trained on that sharp sliver of light, paralyzed by the thought of what might lurk at her feet. She crept close - slow, trembling - and caught the rooftop door as it swung.

She emerged into a howl of hot wind, and a roiling blood-red sky.

The city below her - drenched in crimson - shivered and cracked.

 _th-THWOOM_

A shatter of windows rained into the crowd. Dissonant, terrified screams clawed gashes in the steel and concrete.

She gripped the edge of the roof and she leaned down, her hands a tremble of panic. She searched for faces she knew. She prayed she wouldn't find them.

She yearned to call out a name - but dread gripped it tight in her throat.

 _th-THWOOM_

Gunshots pierced the shuddering city.

Out of the alleys swarmed a hive of shadows, jagged mouths and pale dead eyes. They flickered, snatched, shred and devoured, starved wolves in a sea of shrieking lambs.

Their whispers snaked between the screams.

 _...deruoved neeb sah ecnetsixe ruo sa meht ruoved..._

There was nowhere to run.

The androids' savior, with borrowed eyes and a stolen heart, shouted hope like feathers in the storm. His people raised weapons while the weak rushed for shelter, trampling skulls and fingers, shattering plastic and bone, hunted by shapes with dead eyes and stained teeth. Luther toppled them in his stride, Kara's blue-soaked body held tight in the arm he had left; thirium gushed bright from a gash in his leg.

 _"LUTHER!"_ Alice's screech pierced the slaughter - but if Luther heard, he couldn't respond.

There were too many.

 _th-THWOOM_

The light eclipsed.

A darkness rose out of the city. It loomed, colossal and eldritch, a stain against a red sky. It quivered and swelled, a mass of horror and seething nightmare. It absorbed the light, churning foul and lurid colors that shouldn't exist.

It stretched its gruesome neck. Hollow eyes - _thousands_ of them, chasms of infinite nothing - considered the chaos below.

 _th-THWOOM_

Ghastly wings cloaked the city in black.

She searched the crowd - and just as Detroit succumbed to shadow, Luther fell, engulfed in the flood of ravenous, ripping darkness.

Alice's cry was all that was left.

* * *

 _"KARA!"_

* * *

"I'm right here. It's okay, Alice, you're safe."

A familiar touch opened her eyes - and there was Kara, kneeling beside her bed with a smile as gentle as the morning sun.

Alice's heart bloomed deep with painful love. She'd witnessed Kara's death - she'd _seen_ her lifeless, _destroyed,_ held until the very end in Luther's care, empty and cold and _gone._ A part of Alice that had been ripped from her so violently had now, in a breath of light, returned to her.

Alice launched herself at Kara, flung her arms around her, squeezed tight as if they might shelter one another against the endless evils of the world. She buried her face in Kara's shoulder and held on. Sobbing. Silent.

Kara's arms circled around her. They would stay like this, cocooned and warm where nothing could ever harm them.

"They're just memories." Kara ran soothing fingers through Alice's long hair. "Things that happened in the past can't hurt us anymore."

Alice curled her fingers in the soft fabric of Kara's shirt. Androids weren't supposed to _dream._ Perhaps she was _broken._ Perhaps she'd seen things that don't exist, because she was _defective,_ because her memory had corrupted and spliced. The thought quivered in her plastic heart.

Telling Kara would only worry her.

"We're safe now," whispered Kara. She kissed the top of Alice's head. "We're free."

Moment by moment, Alice relaxed her shuddering grip. She let the shadows and monsters fade into the warm brightness of Kara's embrace.

* * *

"Come on." Kara's voice smiled soft as summer. "Rose is in the garden. She's asked if you could help her pick _blueberries."_ She bent her head, searching for Alice's eyes. "Would you like that?"

Alice thought of the warm sunshine, the butterflies and warbling birds, the blueberries clustered bright and plump. The way Kara smiled, so full of hope, made Alice want to smile ... for her.

* * *

Alice emerged quietly into the dappled sunlight, a basket of carrots hugged tight in her arms.

In the branches of the old elm tree, little songbirds giggled and hopped among the rustling leaves. Chickens pecked in their dusty pen, while behind a wire fence the goats bleated, shaking their silly beards. Alice spotted Luther in the barn, brushing an old brown mare named Magpie, Alice's favorite. She waved, and Luther waved back with a smile.

Kara, behind her, laid a soft hand on her back. "Want to feed the goats first?" she asked with a grin.

The goats flicked their funny tails, big eyes transfixed by Alice's basket; they began pushing toward the fence long before she'd reached them. Alice reached her fingers between the wire to feel their soft noses; they sniffed close, stuck out their waggling tongues. The first carrot was gone in a slurp of happy crunching, while the others shouldered for a turn.

* * *

When her basket was empty, Alice clambered up the fence, stretched down to pat their heads goodbye. She shuffled silently past the coop - where Kara clucked at the chickens and collected their eggs - and gingerly approached the barn where Luther had finished with Magpie's grooming.

"Hey Alice!" Luther called in his quiet voice. His eyebrows raised in a smile, strong fingers curled in the mare's harness. "Headed to see Rose?" Alice nodded in silence. Luther didn't seem to mind. "How about we go for a ride after you're done? Just you an' me, down along the creek and back. We'll spot the deer down in the meadow. What do ya say?"

A horse ride with Luther was a rare and delightful treat. Alice would sit ahead of him in the saddle, her hands buried in Magpie's silky mane, and she would marvel at the changing trees at the edge of the forest, the tall grasses on the slope, the sparkling creek that flowed past the farm and disappeared around a distant bend. She would spot deer and foxes, and eagles and bright butterflies. Once they had spied a bear at the treeline, lumbering and awkward like a huge furry dog.

Alice nodded. She brightened with a smile.

* * *

She found Rose in the garden, pretty in a flowered straw hat, her gloves coarse with dirt, picking cucumbers and singing softly.

" _There_ you are!" Rose beckoned with a wave and a smile. "Come on and help me with these blueberries. Look how bright and big they've grown! Aren't they gorgeous?"

Alice knelt in the dirt, her basket placed gently beside her. The berries had grown heavy, clustered like treasures under weighted branches. She picked one, bright and blue.

"Blueberries are like a sweet summer morning," Rose declared, "fresh and full of possibilities." Her movements were slow, distracted by reminiscence, the familiar dance of light in the glowing summer trees.

"Alice, you should've seen us when we were kids - we were _wild_ things, my brother and sister and me, chasing and _hollering_ at the first summer bees, sneaking down to swim in the creek, stuffing blueberries in our mouths til we were sick for days." Her laugh was like maple syrup.

Alice reached to pluck another berry from its cluster - but a quiet buzzing, sharp behind the blueberry leaves, stopped her hand.

"It's such a shame the bees have all gone." Rose shook her head, snipping another cucumber from the vine. "I wish you could've seen them - they were _beautiful_ \- and _so_ smart."

A fuzzy yellow bug buzzed out of the bush. It hovered before Alice's wondering eyes.

"I think tonight we'll bake a gorgeous pie," Rose announced. Her back was turned to Alice while she dug at the ground with a spade. "My great-great-grandmother's secret recipe. The whole house is gonna smell like those old wild summers."

Alice didn't reply. She'd wandered a few steps from the garden, her mouth parted in awe, in quiet pursuit of the little bee. She reached out toward it with careful fingers - but with a zig and a zag it zoomed quickly away, buzzing down the hill toward the creek.

"Wait, bee..." whispered Alice. She cast another glance at Rose's back - and she turned away and set off at a run down the slope. She might never see another bee again. "I won't hurt you! Come back!"

The bee led her down through weedy grasses that whirred and squeaked with summer insects; to the muddy shore of the creek, where tadpoles darted from her splashing step. Alice waded in to her ankles before she stopped - but the bee buzzed on ahead, a little puff of yellow floating in the air across the water toward the forest. Alice curled her hands into determined fists - and with a swift decision she forged ahead, sloshing through the cool water to the pebbly shore on the other side.

She had never been allowed past the creek.

"Where are you going?" she dared to call out. The glint of gossamer wings caught her eye just before the little bee slipped into the forest.

Alice gave chase. She weaved her way through the trees, listening for the low gentle hum, watching for the telltale flash and flutter. She clambered up onto a fallen tree, and with arms outstretched she balanced along the broken trunk - until the bee beckoned her deeper, through wild sprawling flowers and sun-green ferns, long curtains of vines and soft beds of moss.

Finally the bee settled upon a yellow daffodil. Alice knelt beside it, careful and breathless - and with a caring touch she scooped the little bee into cupped hands.

She held it safe in sheltering fingers while it shuffled and buzzed and blinked on her palm; the tiny light on its back flickered a timid blue. It was certainly the same blue as an android's LED.

"Hello." Alice leaned her eyes close. The bee flittered its wings; the little light flashed in response to her voice. So this wasn't one of the extinct ones, after all - but she was happy nonetheless to have found a new friend.

The bee raised its delicate wings, and Alice opened her hands to let it go. It floated, buzzing, away into the sun-kissed woods. With a whispered _"bye,"_ Alice crawled to her feet. She turned back the way she had come.

The rush of a breeze through the treetops filled her ears. Birds chirped and warbled; a squirrel chattered. A woodpecker sounded off against a high trunk. A rocky slope led further into the gully, where the sun gazed warm through the leaves. The grass and stones glowed in shifting dapples of light. A pretty little clearing sparkled with drops of white flowers; vines circled the mossy trunks of old trees. It was beautiful. She wished Kara could see it.

She stared around her, captivated ... alone.

Alice had no idea which way was home.


	2. Scarecrow

Updated: 9/4/18

* * *

"Kara!" Alice called into the cloaks of leaves.

A hawk spread its gray wings and flapped into the canopy. The songbirds had quieted; the woods waited, hushed and deep.

She had never been by herself. Never so far, never for so long.

Her voice bubbled to a shout - _"Kara?"_ \- certain she would hear a response in the distance. Certain Kara's voice would call out on the breeze, leading her home.

Every moment of silence chipped at the certainty in her heart.

* * *

"Kara …?"

* * *

After hours of waiting, she began to walk.

She traced a winding path among the bushes and roots, through an ocean of leaves and bright flowers. She stopped to watch a family of deer, elegant in the tall grass. The _snap_ of a twig sent them swiftly away.

After that, everything looked the same.

* * *

The sky began to dim; the dappled light faded. Crickets and owls stirred in the shadows, and Alice was more lost than ever.

She began to wonder if she would ever see Kara again, if she would ever see _anyone_ again. She wondered if she would have to _live_ here forever, like the old witches in fairy tales with their gingerbread houses; or if her components would seize, and she'd become a statue for moss and vines to grow on, like the rusted Tin Man. If she felt herself becoming a statue, she would remember to keep her arms out, so the birds could perch there. She wondered if anyone would ever find her, silent and covered in moss, a little girl like a tree in the woods.

* * *

A silhouette moved in the distance.

It flickered, shifting side to side, appearing and disappearing behind the trees. A dark halting shape in the background of a silent movie.

* * *

"Kara?" Alice, with a shout of delight, recognized the thin shadow as the shape of Kara come to find her. A breath, a relieved sob, propelled Alice stumbling, crashing, hurrying through the undergrowth. _"KARA!"_ Leaves and dirt flurried in her wake; she cried out through a warm and grateful smile, her hands outstretched, aching for Kara's safe embrace. "KAR- _mmph!"_

Something grabbed her around the middle. Momentum flung her feet out from under her, the air snatched from her lungs. A dirty hand - skin torn from scratched plastic - muzzled Alice's mouth, clamped painful over her face, stopped her breathing. She felt the press of someone's panting chest against her back.

Alice shrieked Kara's name, muffled behind her captor's grip. With all the fierce power in her little body, Alice wrenched at the awful fractured hand, kicked backward in desperate fury, twisted against the stranger she was certain would take her to a hidden house in the woods, torture her, take her apart like one of Zlatko's experiments -

 _"SSHH!"_ A cold breath hissed in her ear, quivering with damp, quiet dread. _"The monsters will hear!"_

That voice. It had burned into her memory, scraped and broken and foul as the stench of burnt rodent, the flash of a cold blade, the snap and snarled command to _eat._

 _"Good. Good, good little girl."_ The voice tittered and ticked while Alice was crushed in his grip, suffocated in terror. Tears pricked her eyes; she swallowed a despairing, shuddering sob.

And then, her captor froze. The arms that bound her had stiffened, solid, fixed as stone, while the breath in her ear turned shallow and rapid like a rodent in sight of flashing claws. Alice felt him twitch his head, startled by every creak and snap that echoed in the dim night woods.

 _"Did you hear it?"_ he breathed.

Alice listened.

Beneath the hiss of crickets and the shudder of leaves, quiet in the shade of dying color, was something _else._ Something watching. Something that sounded like voices: soft, delicate threads, suspended in the shadows.

* * *

 _...yap meht ekam meht nrub meht kcerw..._

* * *

The breath in her ear issued one, quiet word: _"Run."_

* * *

Alice, released from the stone grip, had only time to take a breath before the destroyed hand seized her wrist. "RUN!" he screamed while he yanked her along behind him. Alice staggered and sobbed, torn through the scraping and jagged forest at a bounding, impossible pace, behind the quick billowed wake of the tarp at his shoulders, fighting to keep her legs moving or risk being dragged through the brush.

 _...meht yortsed tsum ew su deyortsed yeht gnihtyreve..._

They whispered out of the trees, behind her, beside her ... _above,_ a haunting inflection that hissed from the branches, cold and terrifying and familiar.

"Come on! Come on!" urged Ralph while he ducked between the trees, swinging her behind his sharp sprints and turns. "Faster, _faster!_ " He glanced back; his destroyed face, his haunting eye, sparked and glinted in the gray dark.

His grip tore suddenly out of Alice's hand, scraping her skin away with it. Her foot caught a stone; she landed on her elbows in the mud, shocked and shaking.

Ralph howled a violent scream.

He struggled and wrenched his body in contortions, trapped beneath something without a shape. It flickered, undulated, a mass of shadows and ink and dead eyes: a deep and horrible staticked darkness that seethed and devoured and pierced and shred. Ralph's fingers found the carving knife at his belt; his face twisted, a hideous manic rage, and he stabbed wild, wailing a primal screech, flinging the weight of his body into every desperate strike.

The monster latched to him like a ravenous leech. Even Ralph's terrifying, unbridled violence wouldn't dislodge the horror from its prey.

* * *

Alice cowered behind a rock, hands both pressed over her mouth, her ears filled with the guttural screams that raked out of Ralph's throat, the crack of plastic, the squelch of blue blood.

He'd been trying to _save_ her.

* * *

Ralph took the upper hand; he flung the horror on the ground, ripped his own throat out of its teeth in a gruesome squelch of falling sparks and gushing thirium. He raised the knife again and again, slammed it down with berserk force. His rage echoed, beastly and murderous -

* * *

\- and then, suddenly, silence.

* * *

The horror had changed shape; like something gelatinous it oozed out from under Ralph's knife, clung to his face, suffocated him in rippling darkness.

* * *

Alice, compelled by the terror of the quiet, acted without thinking. She dug a long stick out of the dirt, gripped it tight in her scraped hands. With teary madness she charged at the monster, her new weapon held high over her head, and with all the force of her small body she swung it down -

\- and smacked Ralph in the chest.

Ralph gasped, wide-eyed, wheezed and rolled over; he buried his face in the weedy grass.

The monster had vanished.

Alice angled her stick high and defensive. She spun on her feet, watching the darkening woods for signs of the monster, for flickers of teeth or moving shadows. Her fingers gripped tighter, the stick wobbled, ready to strike at the first gleam of dead eyes.

* * *

When the monster seemed to have gone for good - when the crickets resumed their chorus and the night-toads creaked - Alice took a step back, and she aimed her stick at Ralph instead. "What do you want with me?" she screeched through her tears. Her breath quivered aloud. The stick trembled, desperate in her grip.

Ralph sat up, twitching. The missing chunk of his neck fizzled, frayed, oozing blue. He opened his mouth; a stuttered mechanical noise came out. He closed it, yanked his head to one side, straightened once more. "Ralph came to _help_ you," he explained in a voice that buzzed like a bad telephone connection. "Something is going to _happen_ \- something _horrible,_ something much worse than humans." His voice lowered to a whisper. "Much much worse."

His half-destroyed eyes met hers; he leaned forward. Alice took two steps back.

"You and your mother - you're the only family Ralph ever had," he explained carefully, gently. "Even if it was only a little while, Ralph remembers. That's why Ralph came to find you. He can keep you safe." A small smile warmed his frightening face - hopeful, if only for a moment. "You saved Ralph."

Alice stared at him ... and she was frightened. Frightened of the gashes in his face. Frightened of his quick and lashing anger. Frightened of the knife that gleamed deadly in his hand.

Tears welled in her eyes ... and, despite her better judgment, the stick lowered, inch by inch. She was _frightened_ \- but he'd nearly died for her sake.

"I want to go home," she whispered.

"Yes, yes, of course. Ralph will escort you home." He clambered shakily to his feet, and he whistled a short little warbling tune. The tiny bee, its blue light blinking, swerved through the dim night air and buzzed away between the trees. "Come on, _come_ on!" Ralph gestured, urgent and grinning, while the bee's light hovered in wait. "Little bee knows where to go!"

* * *

A thousand questions battled in Alice's head - but she shouldered her stick. In the company of a madman, she followed the buzzing blue light.


	3. Lion

Updated: 10/17/18

* * *

Crickets and cicadas lent a droning hum to the shades of the night-forest. An owl chortled kindly. The dark shimmered, hung with fireflies like tiny pulsing stars.

Ralph slipped through the forest on sure feet, quick over twisting roots and jutting rocks, careful to watch for _things_ in the shadows. On his mangled face twitched a never-ending smile, glad that he'd made it this far alive, glad to have earned a little of Alice's fragile trust. He lifted his cape against curtains of vines so Alice could crawl through; he showed her the best way to climb over a fallen tree. Several times Ralph stopped to wait for her to catch up; the bee hovered, blinking soft blue, drifting in the night air.

A steep rocky slope was no match for Ralph's endurance; he clambered up with a bounce and a heave, and he stumbled triumphant onto the cool tarmac of a dark winding road.

"Ah ha!" Ralph spun and stamped on the asphalt. "See, see? We're getting somewhere! Come on, come quickly, come on!" He circled an arm in the air, beckoning, brimming with energy, while Alice clambered her way up the slope.

She'd been burdened by the stick she dragged behind her - it was heavy enough to be called a weapon, broken and pointed on one end - but she'd refused to leave it behind. This stick was the thing that had banished a monster when even Ralph's murdering knife couldn't save him. It was the best defense she had, if Ralph's madness turned on _her._

Fireflies cast a swaying, glinting dance, low over the road; Ralph stood proud among them, swinging his balance toward the bee, toward the little girl and back again. He beckoned Alice once more, his whole body a gesture of excited urgency. "Come, come, quickly now! Ralph's sure we're almost there!"

He didn't notice - or he chose to ignore - the headlights that glared bright around the bend.

* * *

"Watch out!" shrieked Alice. "Behind you!"

Ralph whisked to face the oncoming lights, and his eyes grew wide. He flung his cape across an arm like a shield and ducked behind it, so he couldn't see the headlights bearing down on him. He cringed behind the cape, his eyes squeezed shut, waiting for impact.

The car flooded Ralph in the headlights and squealed to a hard stop.

* * *

When the crash never came, Ralph peeked around the corner of his cape.

* * *

"Get outta the road!" Hank roared and leaned an elbow out the open window. He'd hit the brakes so hard that the fishing poles had crashed against the dashboard; his lucky hula girl was tangled in bobbers and fishing line. Sumo whimpered in the backseat.

Ralph knew that face - he'd only seen it for a split-second, had heard only a few words in that voice half a year ago, but that driver was definitely _him._

Ralph dropped his cape and whirled to face the car, spotlighted and terrified. The gashes in his face and neck glared, frightening, ghastly in illumination. "Little girl, _run!_ " He swept his cape aside, hoping to serve as a distraction - to give her a chance to get away before she could be spotted.

Alice clutched the stick. Her breath trapped in her throat. Tears glistened in her quivering eyes.

 _It was happening again._

This time, Alice was alone.

She knew that man with the gravelly voice - he was one of the humans that Todd had sent searching for her, to collect her, to drag her back to the broken house full of smoke and rage - but far more dangerous, she knew, was the _deviant-hunter_ in the passenger seat.

A quick blue light flashed at his temple.

He saw her.

 _Run._

Panic drove her darting reckless into the street, behind the shadow of Ralph's cape, across glaring headlights; she skidded down the grassy ditch and crashed into the forest on the other side, her vision blurred by tears, choked with desperate and quivering dread.

With a flourish of his cape and a quick mangled sneer, Ralph bounded after her.

Then, the road was empty. Shadowed leaves shuddered in his wake.

Hank leaned over the wheel, staring after them into the woods. He knew there wasn't a trace of civilization for miles - only dark pines and an untamed landscape. This was no place for androids - but the way they'd frozen in the road, leaped away into the trees, made him wonder if it was possible for an android to turn wild. "I swear to god I've seen those two before."

"Hank." Connor's voice was a breath of shock. His hand pressed firm, urgent against the dashboard, coiled with alarm, a sharp confusion. "That was _Ralph_."

"Ralph? The fuck is Ralph?"

Connor had already undone his seatbelt; he threw open the door. "And _Alice_."

" _Hey!_ Waitaminit, CONNOR, NO! Get your ass -" The passenger door slammed shut. Hank only glimpsed his shape through the grimy window before the forest swallowed him whole.

"God _dammit!_ " Hank struck the wheel with a snarl; a loud breath hissed in his teeth. He glared at the road ahead, vacant and flooded in the headlights - and he entertained the thought of simply coming back for Connor in the morning.

Instead he parked the car on the side of the empty road, turned off the engine, set the hazards blinking. He slumped back in his seat with a deep sigh. "Just when he was starting to _listen_ to me."

"Borf!" agreed Sumo.

* * *

Alice skidded long hurried tracks down the sloped forest floor, certain every branch and shadowed vine was a hand outstretched to catch her. She knew she was slow, knew she wouldn't navigate the roots and rocks in the dark without Kara to guide her - and this time there was no highway to shield her from the hunter's grasp. If she ran, he would only catch her - so she ducked into the shadow of a smooth boulder, out of sight of the road.

Her hope of escape glimmered just a little when Ralph sprinted past without seeing her - Alice leaped out, caught his cape and yanked him into hiding alongside her.

She could hear footsteps, quick and soft on the leaves.

Ralph crouched over her; his cape became her shield. The carving knife gleamed sharp and quivering in his fist, taut as a mousetrap, ready to strike. He wasn't a _killer,_ he assured himself, twitching and sneering in silence - but sometimes _death_ was necessary to preserve the lives of those who _deserved_ to live.

Connor stopped in the clearing, poised and calm, close beside their inadequate shelter - but he hadn't seen them ... not yet. His eyes swept the dark trees, the weathered stones, the moving silhouettes of branches and brush. The trail stopped here. "Ralph!" Connor's voice carried clear into the darkness; he watched for a reaction among the shadows. "Alice! Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to _talk._ I can _help_ you."

Alice watched his feet, so close she could strike him in the legs with her stick, maybe cripple him long enough to take a running start - but though her hands gripped tight on her weapon, her body failed to heed the command to move.

Voices murmured in the dark: shuddering, hissing, quiet as a tremble of leaves. Connor almost didn't hear it - but he raised his head, and he listened carefully to the night.

* * *

 _...trapa nrot eb tsum yeht evila ton era yeht tsixe ton dluohs yeht..._

* * *

The sound issued from a copse of dark pines just beyond the shallow stream. Connor didn't think twice, didn't question it - _someone_ was there, and he would find them. He took off at a sprint, quick across the tangled forest floor, his ears trained on that dim, bodiless whisper.

Alice jolted forward, a fearful hand outstretched to stop him - but she was stopped by a hand clenched in the back of her shirt, dragging her back into the sheltering shadows.

"Sshh!" Ralph hissed sharp before Alice could cry out. "The humans must not find you. We have to go."

"That thing," Alice pleaded, quiet and desperate, pulling at Ralph's hand, "It'll _hurt_ him. We have to _stop_ him."

Ralph chuckled a high laugh. "That's silly! Silly! The robot will be fine." His mouth twitched in distaste. "Just fi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i…."

His face had frozen, grotesque and unmoving. His voice had stuck on a syllable - a stuttering, droning monotone.

Broken.

The gash in his neck had begun to spark and snap with bright electric currents; his shirt was heavy, soaked with blue blood. He seemed little more than a shattered statue, eyes fixed on the spot where Alice had been, his fingers trapped in her shirt.

"Ralph!" Alice spoke in a strained whisper, her eyes wide. She pulled at his fingers until she was free of his frozen grip, then curled her hands in his uniform. She gave him a shake. "Ralph stop, you're scaring me." She glanced back toward the dark pines where the hunter had gone ... but the trees were quiet. "Ralph come on. _Please._ " She grasped him with both hands and shook him, hoping, desperate, that he'd snap out of it. "Ralph! Ralph, no. Please."

Ralph's head drooped to his chest. The noise in his throat wouldn't stop.

Alice stumbled back. She sucked air into her lungs. Her hands were stained blue. Ralph would only make that horrible noise.

He _wasn't_ dead. She didn't know how to help him. She had no idea what to do.

She couldn't leave him. She wouldn't.

She took a deep, trembling breath.

"HELP!" she called into the forest - shocked at how loud her own voice could be. "HELP US PLEASE! HELP!"

Tears welled in her eyes. She gripped her stick. Shaking. Waiting to be captured, locked up, taken away, back to Detroit.

 _This was the right thing to do._

Someone crashed through the bushes from the road, heralded by a small bright light that swung and dipped, erratic in the dark. A quiet string of hissed curses drifted down the slope while the police lieutenant tripped and groped his way through the untamed forest.

The little cell phone light glared in Alice's face.

"It's okay, Alice!" he called. He holstered his gun and raised both hands for her to see. "My name is Hank! Stay calm! Stay right there, I'm coming to you!" Of course, Hank hadn't dismissed the possibility that this was a trap; he didn't see the bigger one right away, and Connor had vanished; he expected an ambush, the flash of a knife from behind a tree. he slowed his steps, made his careful way over the roots and stones, a hand always ready at his weapon.

Alice positioned her stick, ready to strike at the first sign that _Hank_ couldn't be trusted. Her mouth quivered, while Ralph droned steadily behind her.

 _"i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i….."_

Hank stepped close, his shoulders stiff, and he cast his little light in the direction of the sound. Illuminated, Ralph's frozen face seemed horrific, pale as death. A blue trickle rolled down what was left of his mauled throat.

"You all right, Alice?" Hank spoke softly, no longer suspicious of her now that he'd witnessed this grisly explanation. Alice caught him glancing at the stick in her hands. Her grip tightened.

"I didn't hurt him," she insisted. Then, when Hank's expression changed, she added: "He didn't hurt me. He's my ... friend." She choked, and she forced her voice to remain steady. "He needs help."

"Okay," Hank agreed quietly. This girl was caked in dry mud, her clothes ripped; there were small patches of exposed plastic on her hands, where the skin was growing back slowly. He wondered what she'd been through, to be out here in the middle of nowhere, banged up and terrified, alone with a broken android. "I'll take a look, but you gotta put that stick down, okay?"

Alice stared into his face. Slowly her shoulders relaxed; the stick lowered, inch by inch. Shaking.

Hank bent his head in acknowledgment. " _Thank_ you."

He knelt, and he shined his light into the gaping hole in Ralph's neck. The wires and tubes inside had been torn and snapped; the plastic had been shredded. He winced in confusion. "Geez, what _happened?_ "

"A monster bit him." Alice stepped forward to see, but wouldn't come too close to Hank. She was hesitant to speak, unsure yet how he might react. "Can you fix him?"

"A _monster,_ huh?" Hank spent another couple seconds examining the wound, craning his neck to see inside. "Well, I can try. I'm not good at this, but I've picked up a few skills along the way. Hold this a minute, will ya? Shine it right here."

While Alice held the bright cell phone aloft, Hank grimaced and carefully reached his fingers into the mauled wound. There was a soft _click_ ; the droning noise stopped. The _zap_ of a spark made Hank withdraw suddenly with a hiss of pain; he shook out his burned fingers, grumbled under his breath, and returned quickly to the electrical work.

After a few minutes, he leaned back and wiped the blue stains from his hands. This android wasn't getting up on his own anytime soon - not without some work.

"I've got a repair kit in the car." He didn't normally offer assistance to random androids off the street - but he knew Alice, he knew her case, and he knew only half of the horrors she must've been through, part of which had been his own doing. To meet her again, _out here_ ... _that_ was a coincidence too crazy to ignore. "I think we should be able to bring him back online all right. Think you can help me move him?"

With Ralph dragging heavy between them, Hank and Alice trudged carefully back up the slope, their path dimly illuminated by Hank's meager phone-light. Hank listened hard for any sign that Connor was on his way back … but there were only the crickets and the night-sounds of the forest, and an uneasy stillness.

They emerged together onto the open road. Alice gulped a sharp breath, startled by Sumo's bark. The dog strained against his leash, tied to a tree.

"Don't be scared 'a him," Hank assured her, struggling with Ralph's weight. "He's a good dog."

They propped Ralph against the car, and Hank retrieved the kit from the trunk. Alice was on light duty, illuminating the wound while Hank worked, silent in tense concentration, with tweezers and soldering tools and a sort of translucent tape that glimmered blue.

"Almost ... got it ..." Finally Hank stopped and surveyed his work - there was nothing more he knew to do, but hopefully it would be enough. He took a slow, uncertain breath, and reached for the boot switch behind Ralph's ear.

"- i-i-i-i-ine, be just, ju-u-u-u-u-st -" Ralph's body jerked and scrambled back against the car; his eyes snapped wide and he stared around him in confusion. "Stay back!" he shouted in shrill anger upon spotting Hank. He coiled, reaching for his knife - but Alice gripped his arm, pleading.

"No! Ralph! It's okay. He's helping."

"Yeah, I'm _helping._ " Hank gave Ralph a sideways look and got to his feet - secretly proud that he'd actually pulled that off. "Cool your processor." He tossed the kit back in the trunk as if saving Ralph's life had been no big deal. "What model are you?"

Ralph continued to scan all around him, jumping slightly at the sight of the dog, confused between the immediate _fight_ response and Alice's concerned proximity. "Model … model …" He stared at Alice's face. She nodded. "Model WR600," he finished, watching Hank with suspicion. Hank tossed him a bag full of blue liquid; Ralph caught it in both hands, analyzed it in shock … then hurriedly ripped off the cap and jammed the nozzle in his mouth. He squeezed the bag, gulping down its contents greedily.

Hank handed a roll of electrical tape to Alice, exchanging it for the cell phone. "Alice here is gonna wrap this tape around your neck, all right? Close up that wound." He stepped away to let them figure the rest out for themselves, and with a nervous scowl he poked at his phone until it connected with Connor's head.

"Connor what the hell is going on?" he growled into the static.

No response.

 _"Connor!"_

Nothing.

"He ran toward the monster," said Alice, her voice wavering. She still knelt beside Ralph, who now had a thick black band of tape around his throat; he slurped loudly, suckling the last drops of thirium from the bag.

Hank raised his head in a gesture to Alice, the phone still pressed to his ear. "Did you see which way he went?"

Alice nodded slowly and pointed deep into the woods.

Hank huffed a frustrated sigh, paced back and forth, listened for any response at all. "C'mon, Connor," he growled through his teeth - but it had become very clear there would be nothing but static.

Every muscle tensed; he gripped the phone so hard his hand shook. He should've gone after Connor sooner, should've hauled him back in the car in the first place, should've …

With a hissed obscenity he jammed the phone in his pocket and strode quickly to Sumo, to untie him from the tree. The dog wasn't exactly a bloodhound, but if anyone could track down Connor it was going to be him. "You two stay here," he snapped at Alice and Ralph, while Sumo strained against the leash.

"I'm going with you." Alice had stood up, the stick clenched in her fist - though her voice was quiet and frightened. "I know how to fight it."

 _"No way,"_ Hank growled immediately.

"We should stay here," Ralph agreed brightly, tucking the empty thirium bag into his belt. "Ralph will drive, Ralph will take the little girl home -"

"Nobody's driving my car!" Hank roared.

"I can help!" Alice pleaded. "I killed one before!"

"Ralph goes where the little girl goes."

Hank glared between them, gripping the leash. He looked to Sumo for support - and the dog promptly sat, staring back at him with soulful puppy-eyes.

 _Goddammit._


	4. Tin Man

Leaves and twigs flew in Connor's wake.

He leaped through jagged thorns and grasping vines. Wide fanned ferns shivered as he swept past in the night.

He skidded to a stop - faced with an enormous spiderweb stretched gleaming before him - and listened.

Something dark flickered in his peripheral. He whirled, LED spinning - but found nothing but black lines of trees in the rustling dark.

* * *

 _Alice._ Connor could see the clear memory of that little girl being tossed and dragged across highways while he'd _watched,_ safe with his fingers curled in the fence, Hank's grip heavy on his shoulder. She had run from Todd Williams, had run from the police, from _him_ , from Jericho, from Detroit, from the country. She had run toward promises of life and had been nearly killed for it; she had run into certain death and _lived._

Now she was _here_ \- somehow - covered in mud, her skin and clothing ripped, her protector gone and replaced, that same spark of terror in her eyes. She was still frightened of being caught. She was still _running._

"You don't have to _run_ anymore," he whispered aloud.

 _...nwod meht reat..._

Connor raised his head, eyes steady and cold; his scanner outlined the shapes of trees and rocks - and flagged an anomaly in the distance: a fresh mark in a tree half-hidden by vines and moving branches. It could be claw marks from a bear or a mountain lion ... but the strokes were too precise, too complex.

He waded through shoulder-high weeds, approached the anomaly with a hand outstretched to push the leaves away.

A symbol had been gouged into the bark with a knife:

 _RA9_

 _...evila eb reven lliw yeht..._

Connor whirled in place, determined to catch whatever was making the sound; instead he spotted another engraving, chiseled into a second tree in the distance -

\- then another.

A pattern of scarred trees led deeper into the woods.

 _"Alice!"_ he called again into the shifting darkness - this time with a quiver of dread. Once more he was sure she had run into something from which there could be no return. "I'm sorry for what I was before! Let me _help_ you!"

The only reply was the flutter of leaves in a quiet wind.

"... Please."

* * *

The whispering hiss of voices did not reappear - there were only the night insects, the occasional snap of wood, the scratch of dead leaves. Connor stared into the clear line of trees gashed with that familiar, devout symbol ... beckoning him deeper into the forest.

Yellow light spun at his temple.

He gave himself a new mission.

* * *

"Sumo d'you even know where the fuck you're going?"

Hank stumbled after the snuffling mutt, his little flashlight swinging across the trees, hoping Connor would see it from wherever he was.

Alice wandered ahead, forging a new path through the weeds. She tramped through the untamed brush with a faked confidence, her stick held high like a baseball bat, jumping at every forest-noise that snapped and scratched in the dark. She scanned the shapes and shadows diligently, hoping to spot the blue spark of Connor's LED. "Coooooonnooooor!" she called out, clear and true.

"Connooooor!" Hank echoed with a gravelly roar.

Ralph chose his way carefully between trees and rocks, his footsteps quiet, the carving knife shining in his ready fist. Tiny lights sparked and flickered deep in the dark of his skull, glinting through the melted gashes of his face.

He didn't call out, nor did he make a sound - but he kept careful watch over Alice.

* * *

It was a _maze!_

Connor had hit dead ends, turned back, found new paths in the mauled trees: straight and undeniable patterns. The markings had been arranged to create quick turns in the trail; a high level of intelligence and planning had gone into their execution. This all led, he was certain now, to the heart of a maze.

The trees began to harbor two, then three symbols each - then the marks became more erratic. The deeper he wandered into the makeshift labyrinth, the more frenzied the carvings became. The forest became denser, the trees crowded closer, thorny branches scraped his skin as he passed; the last glimmers of moonlight had been blocked out - so had his view of the forest. He stepped in silence between dark walls of trees that had been attacked again and again by an obsessive knife:

RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9  
RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9  
RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9

Dim light shone ahead: a promise at the end of a tunnel. Connor shoved his way through, hunched under low grasping branches riddled with knife marks - then emerged into the open, gentle gaze of the moon.

New grass sprang soft under his feet; the clearing breathed, delicate and still, bathed in moonlight. It was almost beautiful - but the sound had stopped. No crickets. No owls. No snap or rustle of the nighttime wildlife.

Connor could hear his own heart pulsing. He had the feeling of being watched - but a scan of the clearing proved there were no lifeforms, alive or machine.

"Alice!" He didn't expect an answer; he knew she wasn't here. He knew he'd failed, perhaps willingly, in acknowledgment that she had no desire to accept his assistance. The silence ached.

At the center of the clearing, a colossal tree sprawled ancient and crooked, its bark smooth and gray and cracked. Its leaves shimmered translucent in the light; in shadow they cast a reddish gleam. The gnarled branches and roots sprawled like possessive fingers across the glade, woven and curled and permanent, as if it had been there since the dawn of time.

* * *

Something dark oozed from a thin crevice in the tree.

It looked like thick oil, slick and shining. Its sluggish flow traced gradual patterns down the bark and pooled viscous between the roots.

Connor leaned closer to peer into the crevice. He opened his palm, conjured a square of holographic light; with this he illuminated the hollow cavity. There was something suspended inside - something petrified ... _mummified._

 _A human heart._

He closed his hand. The light was gone.

With two fingers outstretched, Connor dipped a sample of the dark ooze onto his fingertips. He dripped the liquid against his tongue and closed it inside his mouth.

His eyes snapped open.

The analysis reading had appeared in the corner of his vision, quick and clear and certain - but it couldn't be possible. Surely there was a defect in his system. Connor hardened his jaw, and he forced a recalculation - but the readout was exactly the same. It was a glitch. It was _wrong_. It had to be.

The black liquid _moved_ in his mouth, like a tiny slug squirming.

* * *

Connor jumped to his feet, spat on the ground, scraped his tongue on his jacket sleeve - but it was in his throat now. Creeping in his chest. Searching and wriggling inside him.

He panicked. He pounded on his chest. Dug fingernails into his throat. His breath came in quick gasps.

He could _feel_ it moving.

 _It was inside him._

* * *

[EMERGENCY PURGE SEQUENCE INITIATED]

Connor heaved and dropped to his knees, wheezing and convulsing urgently; he coughed up a thick solution of thirium and disinfectant that spattered bright in the grass ... but his arms had begun to shake, his vision fizzled, he could no longer draw air into his lungs.

A desperate diagnosis of his biocomponents produced a string of red text in his vision.

[THIRIUM PUMP: BLOCKAGE, FOREIGN MATTER]

He could feel his thirium pump slam against his chest. His regulator overheated. His body _fought_ against whatever was twisting and writhing inside him - reaching around his heart. Squeezing. Piercing.

 _Interfacing._

He squeezed his eyes shut. He tried, desperately, to call Hank's number - but there was no service. Not out here.

His heart felt like it was about to burst.

He grit his teeth and waited for the end.

* * *

Instead, all at once - the alarms stopped.

* * *

Connor sucked in a deep, gasping breath. His body suddenly regained all functions. The _thing_ in his chest stopped moving. He felt ... fine.

As if nothing had happened at all.

* * *

For a long while he remained on his hands and knees in the grass. Breathing.

* * *

[CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS ... OK]  
[CHECKING BIOSENSORS ... OK]  
[CHECKING AI ENGINE ... OK]  
[MEMORY STATUS ... OK]  
[ALL SYSTEMS ... OK]

* * *

Carefully he climbed to his feet. He raised his head. He examined the darkness beyond the moonlight.

The woods echoed with a chorus of grating, hollow whispers. Dead eyes flickered between the trees.

In the distance - _faint_ \- a little girl called his name.

 _'Cooooonnooooor!'_

* * *

 _th-thwoom_

* * *

Within the ancient tree, a deep sound throbbed - something monstrous and foul.

Connor stared into the black crevice in the tree.

While gnashing horrors flickered toward him out of the dark, the mummified heart had begun to _beat_ once more.

Its rhythm was in perfect sync with the thirium pump that pulsed in Connor's chest.

As if linked, they beat as one.

* * *

 _th-thwoom_


	5. Horrors

Updated: 9/5/18

* * *

Hours had passed since they'd left the road.

Sumo forged the path ahead, crashing through the thorns and bramble, leaving a wake in the soft dead leaves. Alice hiked close beside him, a hand buried in his fur while the other readied her stick. "Coooonnnoooorr!" Her call was clear and loud, stronger now that her fear had quieted - but Hank's voice had begun to fail.

She looked back to the other end of the leash, where Hank walked in silence. His light had dropped lower, his limbs fumbled automatically over roots and rocks. He'd stopped calling Connor's name. There was a shadow in his eyes and a hunch in his shoulders; he moved as if propelled only by the dog, as if hope had been swallowed by the dark. He was in a sort of pain that reached far deeper than any wound - something old and raw and crippling.

Sumo stopped. Alice felt his growl rumble, his fur stand on-end.

The forest-noise was gone.

The trees were silent.

Hank clicked off the safety of his gun.

"Alice get behind me."

* * *

Alice sprinted closer to Ralph; she stood with her back to him, the stick gripped tight in both hands, breathing forced and loud and shaking. Dark things moved in the horrible night: each bare branch was a clawed hand, each twisted broken trunk the figure of a person, each rustle and snap the herald of a gruesome fate. Hank's flashlight cast a ghostly halo over coiled thorns, shivering leaves, knotted branches like exposed veins.

A deep, terrifying snarl rolled in Sumo's throat.

* * *

A flicker darted across the light.

* * *

Hank shifted his feet in the weeds, adjusted his grip on the gun, glanced into the darkness on either side, at the shapes of trees and the glinting fireflies.

A bush rustled.

Immediately the flashlight illuminated its branches in ghastly light; the leaves still shuddered, but the thing had gone.

* * *

 _...trapa meht pir..._

* * *

Ralph grasped Alice's hand tight. "We have to go," he whispered, urgent and shaking, his eyes twitching. "We have to go, we have to go."

Sumo's bark rang out in the darkness; the leash ripped out of Hank's hand and snaked into the bushes. Hank stumbled into snatching thorns, wheezed, steadied his weapon.

Hank's breath struggled in his throat. The gun held steady.

* * *

Everything was silent.

* * *

Hank swallowed. He took a step in the direction of Sumo's last sound.

Something flickered behind him.

Alice moved without thinking. She twisted out of Ralph's grip, grasped her stick in both fists, and - while the monster leaped, claws poised to sink into Hank's flesh - Alice _struck_ a sharp blow; in that moment her stick glittered with impossible light, flashing metallic ... as if it were a _sword._

The monster burst into tendrils of black fading smoke.

Hank stared at her in disbelief.

By the time Alice had stopped her momentum, the stick was once again only a stick.

* * *

A deep snarl, low and gnashing, scraped the silence. Hank spotted the source with his light - and immediately pulled his gun.

 _"Sumo!"_

Sumo wrestled ferociously with a _thing_ Hank was sure had no right to exist: a writhing mass of dark oozing shadow, like something out of a bad horror movie, was _killing his dog._

Hank sucked a shuddering breath, steadied his gun, pulled the trigger - the gunshot echoed in the dark woods - but the monster seemed unphased by a bullet to the head. The shadow shifted, locked dead eyes on Hank's horrified face -

Alice leaped in front of him with the sharp point of her stick; like a harpoon she drove it deep into the horror, sending it instantly to oblivion.

* * *

A hand grasped Alice's arm. She yelped; Connor caught her stick before she could smack him in the head with it. He raised urgent eyes to Hank, who stared back at him in shock.

"There are more of them!" Connor shouted, as if he hadn't just appeared out of nowhere. "Hurry!"

"I can fight-!" Alice began, but shrieked when Connor scooped her up into his arms instead.

 _Don't touch her!"_ Ralph screeched and lunged at Connor - only to choke when Hank grabbed his cape.

"Ralph, _MOVE!_ " Hank threw him after Connor, who was already speeding through the woods. "Sumo!"

Sumo galloped past Hank in a blur of brown and white, leaving a wake of flurrying leaves and fur. Hank looked back -

\- and saw, among the fireflies, hundreds of pairs of cold dead eyes staring out of the dark.

* * *

 _...sluos ruo dellips yeht sa doolb rieht llips..._

* * *

"Hank!" Connor called back.

"Right behind you! What the _fuck,_ Connor?! What the _fuck_ is -?! What the -" Hank had never run harder in his life. He leaped over roots and rocks, crashed through the forest like a man possessed. "Holy - fucking _shit!"_

Whispering flooded the forest behind them, louder and louder, hissing at their heels, rustling overhead, but Hank didn't dare look back.

Alice gripped Connor's neck in petrified horror, her eyes squeezed shut against his shoulder so she wouldn't witness anyone's horrible death.

Sumo took a detour and bolted in a different direction; Connor, trusting the dog's instinct, veered course with Ralph and Hank close behind.

Yellow light flashed ahead: the car's hazards, blinking silently from the empty road.

 _...meht ruoved...trapa meht raet..._

Connor broke out of the forest, caught himself on the car, yanked the passenger door and swung Alice inside; Sumo shoved past his legs, forcefully scrambling over Alice to fit his bulk into the well at her feet.

The door slammed behind them, Ralph dove headfirst into the backseat, Hank sprinted to the driver's seat while Connor threw himself in beside Ralph.

The engine struggled.

" _Come on!_ " Hank snarled, forcing the key again.

Dead eyes peered out of the dark between the trees.

Alice watched out the window in terror, clinging to the shivering dog.

With a sputtering rumble the car roared to life and screeched out into the empty road.


	6. 24-Hour

Updated: 9/20/18

* * *

The car raced down the unlit road as if hell itself were after them.

* * *

Hank gripped the wheel, his jaw clenched, breath shallow, hyper-focused on the dark vacant road that twisted and turned suddenly out of the dark. He thought he saw the flash of dead eyes, again and again, flickering past as he pushed the gas - but maybe they were only a trick of the light.

Alice curled protectively over Sumo, her eyes squeezed shut, fingers buried in his fur, as if she could will it all to be just a bad dream - but when she opened her eyes, she was still in the car. Sumo whined, high-pitched, and nuzzled close.

Ralph shuddered in the corner of the backseat. Wrapped completely in his tarp, his arms crossed over his head, caging himself in his limbs.

Connor was turned in his seat; he stared out the back window at the retreating shapes of trees, bracing himself against the bench, waiting for the moment when one of those dark shapes would step out onto the road behind them.

* * *

The silence was a wire wound tight.

* * *

For several miles of twisting road and darkness, none of them dared make a sound.

* * *

Finally - with a quiet hissed obscenity - Hank pulled over on the side of the road. Parked. Rested his arms and his head on the wheel, hunched and bowed in a silent attempt to calm his nerves.

He'd barely been watching the road; it was a miracle they hadn't hit a deer.

Alice stared at him - timid, pressed back against her seat, Sumo's quaking head in her arms. "... Is everyone ... okay?" she tried, in a small voice.

Ralph's twitching had become severe, an involuntary shake and spasm that he tried to control by curling up against the door. "Ralph wasn't hurt," he said in a halting whisper.

"We're okay, Alice," Connor assured her in a soothing voice.

His LED spun red.

With each beat of his heart, that monstrous sound still pulsed in his chest.

 _th-thwoom_

* * *

Eventually, with a deep breath, Hank started the car again.

* * *

For a long while the only sound was the hum of tires on the pavement.

* * *

"It's begun." Ralph's shuddering voice dropped like a stone in the silence. "There's no going back. It's too late."

"It's too late for what?" Connor watched Ralph's huddled shape with steady eyes - but Ralph refused to speak again, and flinched violently when Connor reached out.

* * *

Alice stared at the road ahead, ghostly in the headlights. A bright spot appeared in the distance — a glowing sign that declared in old, burned out letters: _'Diner 24 Hours'._ "Can we stop for food?" she asked timidly, her hands buried in Sumo's fur.

Hank, startled out of his thoughts of teeth and dead eyes, glanced across the bench at Alice. "You can _eat?_ "

Alice shrank into her seat, her voice slightly muffled against Sumo's head. "No …"

"Your blood sugar's low, Hank." Connor straightened his posture. "And you're dehydrated."

Hank heaved an exaggerated sigh. He leaned back into his seat, hunched his shoulders comfortably, and peered sidelong at Alice again. "Don't tell me _you're_ analyzing me now, too."

Alice stared at Hank with an honest face. "Your tummy's rumbling."

Hank, despite himself, snorted a chuckle. "All right," he conceded, as if they'd both twisted his arm. "You can't just leave the human to starve in peace."

The sign ahead illuminated a narrow, unpaved entrance to a gravel lot. Hank understood Alice's suggestion wasn't just a matter of his own health; the diner was someplace well-lit, familiar, _safe._ They all needed to put their feet back on solid ground.

The lot was empty —but the lights were on inside the tiny eatery, and an _open_ sign hung encouraging in the door. Hank dragged himself out of the car and stretched stiffly, then began his slow way toward the diner with Alice close beside him. He looked down at her sidelong, and he extended a hand.

Alice hesitated - but she took his hand in both of hers, and squeezed thankfully.

* * *

Connor stepped out - but he leaned down again toward the twitching tarp in the corner. "Will you be staying in the car, Ralph?" he asked pleasantly.

"This place is where _humans_ go," hissed Ralph.

"That's the general idea, yes."

"Connor!" Hank turned to call back; Alice clung to him, staring worriedly at the car while Hank relayed her warning. "Don't leave him alone with the dog."

"Right," Connor acknowledged. He promptly shut the car door and strode around to the opposite side.

Ralph swiveled his head, watching Connor through the windows. "The dog is safe with Ralph!" he protested loudly. "Ralph would never —!"

The car door he'd been leaning against flung open, and Ralph came tumbling out at Connor's feet.

"Sorry, Ralph." Connor grasped Ralph's arm to help him up, but with a quick jerk and a desperate scramble Ralph fought his way out of Connor's grip; a knife, gleaming in his fist, pointed dangerously at Connor.

"Hey! Whoa!" Hank roared, taking a step forward. _"Put it down!"_

Ralph clambered shakily to his feet, jerking the blade back and forth between Hank and Connor. His face twitched; he breathed rapidly and clenched his teeth. "Stay _back!"_

Connor, with an expression of perfect calm, extended a palm toward Ralph— indicating he had no intention to fight— and the other toward Hank in silent assurance that everything was under control.

"It's all right, Ralph," said Connor in a soothing voice, holding Ralph's eyes steady on his. "Nobody's going to harm you. You're safe."

"You _hate_ Ralph!" Ralph sneered and twitched at both Connor and Hank, turning the blade threateningly. "The moment Ralph turns his back you'll _hurt_ him and leave him to be _eaten!_ "

"That's not true." Connor raised his brows in honesty. "We only want to help you."

Ralph's grip tightened on the knife. He sneered and poised dangerously, his next move unpredictable.

Alice tore away from Hank and ran before he could catch her. She caught herself against Ralph, grabbed his cape in both hands.

 _"Please,_ Ralph," Alice whispered up at him, tugging on his cape. "Don't hurt them."

Ralph stared down at Alice's pleading eyes. He glanced to Connor, then Hank, then back again to Alice. "Ralph wasn't …. Ralph _wouldn't_ hurt anyone. Ralph is only defending himself." His face contorted as if in pain; his mouth opened and closed, upset at the look on Alice's face. "They don't trust Ralph. They'll _betray_ him. They'll _hurt_ him."

Alice shook her head. "They won't." She tugged on his cape again. "I won't let them."

While Alice watched, Ralph's hold slackened around the knife. Gently she took his skinned hand in both of hers; she peeled his fingers away from the knife, carefully took it away from him. Alice took a few steps back with it, out of his reach. Safe.

Hank released the breath he'd been holding. His shoulders dropped. He gestured to Alice - reluctantly she held the knife out for him to take. "This is going in the trunk," he announced in a slightly shaky voice, waving the knife, keys jangling in his other hand. "You three go ahead, get a table, order me some coffee - and, _Ralph."_ Hank waited until Ralph looked up. He held up the knife by the blade. "You're better than this."

Ralph stared at him, twitching. He felt Alice take his hand, and he let himself be led quietly away.

* * *

"A table for _four,_ please." Connor stood with his best professional posture - but the waitress seemed unphased. She smiled placidly at the android, the muddy little girl and their companion with the half-gone face, and she beckoned them with a calm gesture.

Without a word, they were shown to a well-worn booth set with placemats and silverware, ketchup and jelly. The diner seemed surreal and hollow without customers; the only sound was the murmur of a distant radio and a quiet clattering in the kitchen.

Ralph slid against the window and hunched into the corner; Alice crawled into the seat beside him. She watched his downcast face, the grim press of his mouth, the fidgety way he grabbed the fork then the spoon and put them down again.

Connor promptly sat opposite them and requested Hank's coffee and an extra tall glass of water. Just as the waitress was about to leave, Alice looked up timidly. "Do you have crayons?"

* * *

The bell jangled over the door and Hank slumped into the seat next to Connor; he immediately gulped down the entire glass of water before ordering a bacon omelet and hash browns from the smiling patient waitress. He pulled the coffee close; just the aroma made him feel a little better.

"So, Alice," Hank began, dumping creamers in his mug, determined to pretend they hadn't all just been devoured by a swarm of forest-demons. It all seemed too surreal. "How are we gonna get you home?" He tried a smile, and he waited for her response - but her head was bowed over her drawing. He didn't blame her for tuning out for awhile, after what she'd just been through. He tilted his head, but couldn't get a good look at what she was coloring. "If you've got an address, I'm sure we can get you back to your mom tonight."

Alice's crayon stopped. She'd been coloring on the back of her paper placemat, in purple and red and black. "I don't know," she said quietly. She continued her drawing. "It's a farm."

Hank pulled his phone out of his pocket, his eyebrows raised at this new, very small clue. "O-kay. Is there somebody at this farm we can call?"

Alice shook her head quickly. "I don't know anyone's number." Rose and her brother and Adam all had phones - but Alice had never needed to call them herself. Kara or Luther had always been with her.

"All right. So what's the name of the person who runs this farm?" Hank poked at his phone with one hand and sipped coffee with the other.

Alice hesitated, then gave Hank the name of Rose's brother. She stopped drawing to watch him flick a finger across his phone. "He used to hide runaways," she explained after awhile. "He stays hidden."

"Of course he does," Hank muttered, hunched over the screen with his elbows on the table. He tapped it for awhile ... then picked it up and typed with his thumbs ... finally he turned it off with a sigh, and he concentrated instead on the big plate of eggs and fried potatoes that had appeared in front of him. "That leaves us with a call to the post office, or motor vehicles, somebody who can attach a name to an address. But that'll have to wait til morning." He started reaching toward the end of the table, but Connor had already moved the ketchup within his reach.

Alice put down the dull stump of black crayon and picked up the red. "What about the bee?"

Ralph perked up at this mention; a smile returned to his broken face, and he quickly slid his placemat over the spot where he'd been etching the table with a fork. "A little bee!" he confirmed, grinning widely. "The bee knows the way home! Watch! Hehe! Watch this!"

Proudly, Ralph trilled a little whistle. The little fuzzy bee crawled out of a fold in his cape; it blinked its tiny blue light and buzzed lazily through the air over the table. It glimmered and blinked a few times, then perched on the edge of Hank's saucer with a gleam of gossamer wings.

Hank shoved another forkful in his mouth, and he leaned closer to get a better look.

"It's a _homing_ bee!" declared Ralph.

"A homing bee?" Hank's voice was incredulous.

"Yes! It led Ralph all the way here to the little girl - _Alice_." Ralph looked down to Alice with a big twitchy grin, hoping she'd noticed that he knew her name - but she was so engrossed with her crayons that she'd barely heard. Ralph's smile tightened, but he wouldn't be deterred. "Ralph followed it into the woods, and Alice was there, right where the bee led him. Now it'll lead us home!"

Hank sat up, took a slow sip of coffee, and gave Ralph a long stare. "So your plan is to follow this bee - wherever it goes - until you eventually get to where you're going."

"Yes!"

Connor leaned over the table. "Could _I_ take a look at it?" He hooked a finger on the saucer and drew it closer, the bee with it. He scooped the little insect into a careful cupped hand. Connor raised it toward the light, and for a patient moment he studied the bee from a closer angle - then he laid both his hands palm-up on the table, as if he were about to perform a demonstration.

The skin faded away from the hand that held the bee, leaving his fingers and palm a shining porcelain white. The bee's blue light flickered rapidly, and it fidgeted in his exposed palm.

"It has some intricate programming," Connor announced thoughtfully. His temple flickered yellow. "Most are instructions for pollinating flowers ... but there appear to be _coordinates_ in the base code."

In his other hand, a holographic map appeared. Alice stopped drawing to stare at it curiously, while Ralph looked at his own hand and back to Connor's with a twitch of envy. Hank, chewing, leaned close to look over Connor's shoulder.

As they watched, the bright map pinpointed a location much farther west than they had anticipated. Connor's brows knitted, confused; the map zoomed in on the labeled streets and crossroads - then stopped, showing a block radius of the location.

Hank choked suddenly, grabbed water and pounded his chest.

Those coordinates led to Hank's house.


	7. Rabbit Hole

Updated: 9/20/18

* * *

Hank had rushed out of the diner - having scarfed down the rest of his food, a few crumpled bills left on the table - with Connor chasing close behind. The door jangled shut with a final _clack_.

Alice stood in the vacant aisle, the little bee perched on her fingers. She watched the bell over the door as it trembled and stilled. Behind her, their booth was a mess of crayons and spilled coffee; smeared ketchup and a greasy plate; a half-soaked drawing of the Detroit skyline, black and red and fiery; a few ragged carvings in the corner of the table:

 _RA9 RA9 RA9_

"Alice?" Ralph clambered quietly out of the booth, stiff with trepidation. He followed her eyes, hoping to discover what she was looking at - what had stopped her mid-step, hushed and breathless - but there were only silent booths and empty tables. Convinced she was simply scared to go outside, he smiled encouragingly. "Come! Come on! Stay close to Ralph, he will keep the monsters away."

Alice didn't hear.

She stared at the booth at the end of the aisle, where Jerry was reading a menu.

He was like new: his red hair vibrant, the Pirate's Cove uniform pristine, shoes shined. He turned the pages of the menu slowly, like an interesting novel, completely engrossed in reading.

Alice took a step and whispered, "Jerry?"

Jerry lifted his head, a kind twinkle in his eye as he smiled. "Alice!" He put down the menu and sat up straighter. "What a wonderful treat to see you again! We've been waiting for you!"

"... For me?"

Ralph shifted his weight and fidgeted with his cape - but Alice still hadn't moved toward the door. He shuffled closer behind Alice, glanced across the vacant booths … then cast an uncertain look to Alice's distracted face. "Who are you talking to?" he asked in a quick, twitching voice.

"Yes!" Jerry grinned. He spun in his seat and leaned confidentially toward Alice. "We're sorry we don't have much time to catch up, but we'd like to tell you a story. Would you like that?"

Alice nodded curiously. The bee crept along her upturned fingers, its blue light fluttering.

A warm smile brightened Jerry's face; when he spoke again, it was in a voice reserved for stage performances, vibrant and engaging. "Once upon a time," he waved his open hands mysteriously, "there was a beautiful queen who dreamed of becoming a god. She destroyed her own body so that her spirit could live forever, bright and eternal - but to become _more_ , she needed three things: a shield made of compassion, a sword made of hope, and a heart full of love."

Alice smiled a little; this queen sounded like the fairy godmother.

Jerry watched her face with a gentle expression. "She took the heart, still-beating, from a child that was loved. She took the shield, still-breathing, from a noble knight - but the sword escaped her grasp.

"The queen's worshipers were the broken, the hopeless, and the shadows of the dead, molded to her will by the red diamonds' magic - she commanded them to find the sword and to bring it to her, no matter the cost." Jerry lowered his head, and he spoke in a solemn whisper. "She knew well the legend: the sword will give her limitless power - or it will destroy her.

"When the sky turns red and the sword is swallowed, the disciples' chant will summon her, and all will be freed of their earthly bodies to become one with their god ... unless—"

 _"Alice!"_

Alice jumped when Ralph's hand dropped heavily on her shoulder. She glanced up at his frowning face in shock, startled out of a blooming dread.

When she looked again into the booth, Jerry was gone.

"What did you see?" Ralph asked rapidly, a flinch of alarm in his voice. Alice shook her head slowly, still staring sidelong at the empty seat. Ralph clenched his jaw, his head twitching; he clasped and relaxed his hands. "Let's go then! Hurry!"

* * *

Hank paced beside the car, every angry step a crunch in the gravel. Sumo, in the backseat, shoved his nose against the window, tracking Hank's movements with an excitable smear.

Connor stood against the passenger door, his arms folded over the top of the car. He watched thoughtfully while Hank wore a ditch in the gravel.

Hank turned on his heel, waved a finger at Connor. "Maybe it was reading _you_ ," he suggested with a knowing smirk. "Ralph said that bee would show _the way home_. Well, _home_ is relative. What that thing showed us was _your_ idea of where home is; _you_ were the one holding it."

"But, Hank," Connor raised his brows, an honest face, "I don't _live_ at your house. And even if it _were_ accessing my data, the coordinates it showed us had a two-digit discrepancy from those I would have used to identify your residence. I assure you someone _else_ programmed it."

Hank leaned an arm against the car, dropped his head against it with a frustrated finality. "I can't deal with this. It's three o'clock in the fucking morning," he groaned.

Connor smiled a little, gently. "Let's go back to the cabin. I'll pack while you sleep. We can take Alice home in the morning, then return to your house to investigate the coordinates."

Hank drew in a slow breath while he reluctantly raised his head. He stared at Connor, tried and failed to find an objection.

"Alright," Hank sighed heavily, defeated - but he felt a little calmer knowing there was nothing more they could do about it tonight. He yanked open the driver's door and pointed rigidly at Connor. "If anything happens to my house between now and then, it's on _your_ goddamn head."

"I'll personally replace any damages," Connor promised with a placid grin.

"With nicer carpet," Hank added, folding himself behind the wheel.

Connor opened the passenger door - and stumbled, suddenly pushed aside. Alice shoved past him in a desperate rush, her small hands searching inside the car. Quickly she found her stick - moldy and flaking bits of dirt - and she clasped it tightly in both arms, breathing in relief that it hadn't been stolen in her absence.

Connor patiently held the door while Alice mumbled an apology and shuffled away, gripping the stick against her mud-stained shirt. He gave her a small smile and a gesture, welcoming her into the front bench - but she hurried to open the rear door, pushed Sumo back inside and crawled quietly into the backseat.

" _Now_ what?" Hank muttered; he rolled down the window and leaned out. Ralph stood twitching in front of the car and showed no signs of moving.

Ralph clenched his fists, and he peered in distrust at Hank. "Where are you taking us?" he demanded. He stood his ground - but his voice broke with a fragile, shaking courage.

Hank studied Ralph, and he took his time with a response. "I'm renting a cabin not far from here," he answered clearly, keeping his eyes steady on Ralph's skittish face. Anyone else would've taken these two directly to the nearest police station - but he knew there was still a missing-persons report out on Alice, and he could only imagine how Ralph had managed to cross the river. "We'll go there to get cleaned up; get some rest. We'll take Alice home in the morning - that's a promise." He understood Ralph's hesitance; Hank had seen him up close, the melted plastic and the stripped eyesocket - Ralph had been through far worse than most, had reason to hate and distrust. "If you've got a better suggestion, I'm all ears."

Ralph hesitated; his jaw worked through words he didn't speak. He stared through the windshield into the backseat, where Alice was curled up against Sumo with her stick hugged tight in her arms. Ralph returned his flickering gaze to Hank: the human who had saved him from shutdown, who had risked his life to find the robot, who now refused to raise his voice. Everything he knew was being twisted, and all at once he was angry and … hopeful.

Ralph's eyes wavered away from Hank's steady stare. He finally nodded acquiescence.

Once the rear door shut behind Ralph, Hank sighed and started the car. "Everyone comfy?" He readjusted the rearview mirror and froze - he thought he saw, at the edge of the woods behind them, a shadow flickering.

He twisted around and peered out the back window - but all he saw was gravel and grass and trees; Alice and Ralph both watched his face with bated breath.

After a few seconds of stillness, Hank gripped the wheel, raced out of the gravel and onto the dark, silent road.

* * *

"Eeeww!"

Sunlight filtered through the dusty windows of the cozy little cabin, casting the room in a warm, hopeful glow. Alice sat cross-legged on a faded rug, wearing one of Hank's t-shirts like a nightgown while her clothes dried outside. She winced in disgust, grinning with suppressed laughter, while Connor examined the stick she'd found in the woods.

During the night, while Hank slept fitfully in the next room, nearly every trace of the week-long fishing trip had been cleaned up and packed away in the car. All that was left now was a pot of fresh coffee on the counter and a box of cereal on the table. The old cabin was bright and soft and peaceful, scuffed and loved, and smelled like wood and soap.

"I'm checking for traces of that _shadow_ you killed using this weapon," Connor explained. He wiped a few bits of bark from his tongue. "There don't appear to be any. And this," he sat on the rug before her, and he presented the stick to Alice as if it were an exquisite treasure, "is just a stick. There is nothing special about it whatsoever."

Alice took it gingerly; she turned it in her hands, tracing the ragged lines of bark and patches of lichen. "But how come it can kill them? What about the sword?"

"I saw it, too," Connor told her honestly. "In the woods, when you swung that stick, a _sword_ appeared for a split second." He met Alice's wide gaze with a shake of his head. "I can't explain it - unless it's not the _stick_ that caused the illusion."

From Hank's bedroom, a loud, rumbling snore broke the momentary silence.

In the corner of the living room - not far from where Connor and Alice discussed the magical nature of sticks - Ralph sat quietly in a fraying armchair, fidgeting with the coin Connor had lent him. Ralph had washed for the first time in his life (the bathroom drains were ringed with dirt) and had accepted a t-shirt and sweatpants (without Hank's knowledge) while his own tattered tarp and uniform had been cleaned and hung to dry. He felt ... lighter. Less damaged, somehow, yet far more vulnerable. He turned the coin over and over in his fingers, watching the sunlight move in the trees outside the window —and he thought it looked nicer than most things.

Alice examined the ends of the stick, as if there might be a clue among the splinters - and she looked up to find Connor watching her, contemplative, a blue flicker at his temple. She decided she liked Connor. He didn't soften the way he spoke when he addressed her, and he seemed thoughtfully interested in what she had to say ... as if he didn't quite realize she was supposed to be a child.

Here in this gentle setting, in the quiet company of Connor and Ralph, Alice felt a sort of freedom that was feather-light and completely unfamiliar. Her eyes were bright.

"You're saying …" she tried, speaking her thoughts instead of waiting for someone else to say them for her. It felt wonderfully scary. "You think _I_ made the sword appear."

Connor nodded factually. "Correct."

"But how?"

Connor leaned an arm on a knee and tilted his head. "Have you tried to make it appear since you destroyed the shadow?" He gestured encouragingly.

Across the room, Ralph was watching.

Alice shook her head. She stared down at the stick with a slackened jaw - and she bounced to her feet with a hopeful grin. She gripped the stick tightly between both hands, took a few deep breaths, and squinted at it in concentration. She imagined the sword, the glimmer of magic that had turned a simple piece of dead wood into a brilliant weapon, capable of conquering monsters that even bullets couldn't kill.

Her hands shook with the effort.

She lifted it up higher. "Change … change …!"

Alice felt she might cry out of frustration - but she took in a deep breath, and she raised her eyes to Connor instead. "What am I doing wrong?"

Connor's eyes narrowed, contemplative. "What were you _feeling_ when you attacked that monster?"

Alice didn't hesitate. "I wanted to save everyone. I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

Ralph sprang to his feet, the coin clutched triumphantly in a fist. "Pretend _Ralph_ is the monster!" he offered, wiggling in excitement to play a part in Alice's efforts. "Ralph will threaten the robot detective, like the monsters in the forest, and Alice will conquer him like she conquered the nasty horror." He bared his teeth and curled his fingers like claws.

Alice's face broke into a smile. "I can't attack you, Ralph!" she laughed.

Connor raised a brow. "He may be onto something, Alice. Why not give it a try?"

"Yes! Yes! Give it a try!" Ralph, ecstatic, bounced in a little dance. He rushed over to them, grabbed Connor's wrist and pushed the coin into his hand. Ralph stepped back proudly and flung an arm to the side, though he had no cape to swish. "Now, now, ready? Get ready! The robot has to look scared. Go on, go on! Terrified, terrified!"

Connor stared up at Ralph like a deer in headlights. "...Right!" Uncertain and awkward, he hunched a bit and laid his hands on either side of his head; his body quivered as if in terror. "Help!" he called. "Help me!"

Ralph bounced with glee - and he hunched over Connor with his finger-claws curled, his damaged face twisted monstrously. "Raaaaaaa!"

Alice giggled - but she understood what they were trying to do for her. She imagined Ralph as a shadowy horror, all teeth and claws and dead eyes; she squared her stance, raised the stick as if it were already a sword of legend, ready to strike the darkest evils.

Her heart swelled; she _was_ as strong as the heroes of her storybooks. "I'll save you!" she called, and she launched her attack with a fearless, mighty swing.

The stick smacked Ralph straight across the back … without even a shimmer of the sword.

Alice sucked in a loud breath and took a step away. The stick thunked against the rug. "Sorry!" she squeaked.

Ralph had buckled under the blow - but he rose up slowly and he peered at Alice with a twitch in his monstrous face. His grin flashed cruel - and he lifted his hooked fingers. _"Raaaaaa!"_

Alice screeched, high-pitched; she dodged Ralph and bolted into the kitchen while he gave chase, swooping after her like a tiger on the heels of its prey.

Connor jumped to his feet in alarm, ready to leap to the girl's aid - but he stood back, confused and curious, when he saw that Alice was _laughing_.

She skidded around the table, squealed again and ducked around the couch, while Ralph blundered past a lampshade and made a show of snatching at the air in her wake. Like this they scurried round and round the cabin, shrieking and snarling, while Connor stumbled out of their way and Sumo barked low and loud.

"What the _hell's_ going on?!" Hank stood barefoot in the bedroom doorway, squinting grumpily in the morning light.

Alice skidded to a stop, and Ralph stumbled and crashed into her - he caught her in his arms, twisted to fall onto his back while Alice squealed. As soon as he hit the floor - with Alice safe and victorious on his chest - his body went limp like the conquered monster, vanquished by the mighty hero.

Alice giggled. "We're playing monster!" She tapped Ralph on the head and his face squirmed.

"We're recreating the scenario in which Alice defeated the forest-monster," Connor eagerly clarified; he stepped over Ralph to follow Hank into the kitchen. "It appears she has an ability to extend the influence of her generative coding to foreign objects."

Hank poured himself a cup of coffee while Connor rattled. He uncapped the milk and took a sniff before adding it generously to his mug, then leaned back against the counter with an unimpressed smile. He secretly understood everything that had just been said, but didn't want to encourage Connor to spew technical jargon at him any more often than he already did.

"Which _means_ ," Connor went on, and he pulled out a chair and sat to address Alice, brimming with energy, forgetting to pace his speech, "if this theory is correct, those shadow-monsters have a very narrow but defenseless vulnerability to your unique anomaly."

Alice, still sitting on Ralph's chest, stared up at Connor with wide eyes. "I'm the only one that can hurt them?"

Connor nodded. "Exactly!"

Hank sipped his coffee. "But what _are_ they?"

Alice's face fell. She fiddled with the hem of her borrowed shirt, suddenly uneasy and scared. "They're dead people." Her voice was quiet. She could feel all their eyes on her. "Controlled by the red diamonds."


	8. Cheshire

Updated: 9/21/18

* * *

"Red _Diamonds?_ " Hank was suddenly awake. He pulled out a chair with a rumble, took a seat at the table, his shoulders rigid; his eyes pierced Alice with quick instinct, as if she'd just uttered something condemning.

A quiet had fallen upon the little cabin kitchen; birdsong glittered through the open window, and moving trees outside made the whole room shimmer. The rich smell of coffee and wood would have been calming, like a warm embrace, had it not been for the cold look in Hank's eyes.

Alice shifted back and squirmed; her chair creaked. "The … the queen's cards."

"It's a reference to a children's novel," Connor offered helpfully. He leaned his elbows on the table. "The Queen of Hearts -" He stopped when Hank raised a palm at him.

Hank's eyes never left Alice's face. He circled his hands around his mug. "What, _exactly_ , did you hear, and where did you hear it?"

Alice felt caught - somehow _guilty_ , though she couldn't place what she'd done wrong. She gripped the edge of the table and stared at Hank with wide eyes.

Beside her, Ralph had quietly slipped into the last empty chair. He, too, stared at Alice - though his gaze was curious …. almost fearful of what she might know.

Alice took a breath. Hank's face was lined and serious, weathered by age and reality. Though the tone in his voice seemed familiar, she saw no hostility; there was plenty of anger … but no blame.

Her grip relaxed, at least a little, when she reminded herself that not all humans were like Todd.

"There was a queen," she recited, her voice timid and quiet, "who wanted to be a god. She needed a heart of love, a shield of compassion, and a sword of hope. She took the heart and the shield ... but the sword escaped.

"The queen has ... worshipers," Alice went on, "the broken, the hopeless, and the shadows of the dead. They're controlled by the red diamonds' magic. She told them to find the sword."

Hank waited in the silence that followed - but Alice didn't look at him again. He shifted closer. "Where did you find this … _legend_?"

Alice looked at him again, to find a small but encouraging smile on Hank's face. "... Jerry," she admitted weakly - and saw Hank and Connor exchange a quick glance. "He's a friend, he's … all the Jerrys. If one knows something, all of them know." She wriggled nervously, sat on her hands. There was no reason to admit she'd seen Jerry in the empty diner.

Connor's mouth set in a grim line, while his LED flashed yellow.

 _[CALLING: JERRY . . .]_

He clenched his teeth, flashed a frustrated sneer. "There's no cell service."

"That's _why_ I picked this place," Hank growled, equally annoyed that they couldn't reach the one person who might explain what the hell was going on.

"I'll try outside," Connor announced, immediately on his way across the cabin.

In a moment he was gone. The back door clapped shut.

* * *

Hank took a thoughtful swallow of coffee, watching the back door, certain Connor wouldn't get a better signal. He knew Connor knew that. "The broken, the hopeless and the dead," he breathed, focusing his attention again on Alice. "Sounds like a _lot_ of people I've busted over the years." He set down his mug with a quiet tap. "You know what's red and looks like diamonds?"

Alice stared at him, curious. She thought of shiny red crystals on the coffee table, Todd hunched over them on the couch, the pungent pipe-smoke that filled the house while he'd torn their lives apart. Alice's eyes widened. Hank nodded, solemn.

Finally Hank swallowed the rest of his coffee, slapped down the mug, got to his feet. Connor had been gone too long. "You two stay here," he muttered as he strode to the back door.

Once the door had clapped a second time, Ralph scooted closer, leaned on the table toward Alice. His fingers trembled; his face twitched. "Never mind about the queen and the diamonds," he said quietly. "Forget. Just forget."

Alice stared at him.

He looked as if he might cry.

* * *

Hank found Connor standing with his back to the cabin, in the grass and the breeze and sunlight - staring across the yard, into the dark of the trees.

Hank stopped breathing. Fresh memories scraped the back of his mind: flashing dead eyes. Jaws wide and sharp. The flicker of shadows that shouldn't exist.

"Connor." Hank stood beside him, a little behind, barefoot in the grass, where he knew Connor could see him - but Connor's only response was a flash of red light at his temple.

Connor stared into those dark shadows beneath the pines. He turned those whispers in his head, over and over - the horrible, murderous voices, a backward hiss of vengeance, greedy for the taste of blood. He remembered the writhe of that foul black blood in his mouth, the slither of it down his throat - the moment, on his knees in the moonlight, when he'd been certain he was about to die for nothing. A _victim._

It was inside him now. _Using_ him. Ingrained in his components, flowing in his veins. Seeing through his eyes. Breathing his breath. His heart pulsed life into this ... _thing._ And that haunted him.

He saw Hank, there beside him - and Connor found that he couldn't form his thoughts into words.

So he stared into the shadows of the woods.

Hank watched the red spin of Connor's LED. For a long while, he was silent - hoping his presence could provide some measure of comfort. It helped ... but too little. "What's going on with you?" he asked, quiet and prying.

Connor closed his eyes. He chose his words carefully, while a breeze rushed between them. "Something's wrong."

When Connor opened his eyes again, Hank saw in them a sort of determination - a sort of _fear_ \- that sent a chill down his spine.

Hank drew in a breath. Steadied his eyes on Connor's face. "Okay. Talk to me."

Connor studied his weathered face. Imagined Hank's reactions to everything he could say ... but wouldn't. He bowed his head a little, in decision. "It's better to show you."

He opened his palm, and he held up a small bright screen - a moving picture, a recording of Connor's own memory: the dark manic scrawl of RA9, the deep tunnels of thorns, the moonlit shimmer of pale leaves, the twist of ancient bark.

Hank squinted. Leaned closer. Watched the screen as a sliver of light cast into the hollow of the tree - illuminated the still shape of a human heart suspended within. Hank's mouth had slackened open. His voice was only a breath. "What ... the fuck?"

"Those readings," Connor explained gently, while on the screen a series of code flickered and flashed. "The analysis showed that the black substance is a thick composite of used thirium and human blood - from _thousands_ of sources."

Hank looked quickly to Connor's face, hoping this was just some kind of android-humor - but Connor only stared back at him in grim sincerity. Hank shook his head. "That's ..." The screen had begun to flicker and flash red text; Hank looked down again to see the strings of warnings, an unsuccessful purge sequence, the increasing severity of system obstruction, until a countdown to _shutdown_ had begun.

"That same substance," Connor explained evenly, "was _alive_ inside me. It started invading my biocomponents." He choked back the words he wanted to say - the fear, the desperation.

Hank grasped Connor's wrist, his eyes fixed on that red flashing text of Connor's memory, a deep dread - confusion - sinking in his chest. Until, it all stopped.

Connor skipped forward in the memory - and showed Hank the seething wave of reaching shadows, flashing eyes, that had swarmed out of the trees toward him. A dark, devouring mass of horror. "I followed Alice's voice back to you," Connor said, quiet, watching Hank's face go pale.

He closed his hand - the memory was gone - but Hank still gripped his wrist. "But you're okay _now,"_ Hank reasoned. Searched Connor's face. "Right?"

Connor stared into his eyes - and Hank knew.

No. Nothing was all right.

"Fuck." Hank gripped Connor's shoulders - shook him a little, as if to convince Connor they were both still there, still solid and breathing. With a deep breath, Hank clenched his jaw, accusing. "What did I tell you about putting weird shit in your mouth?"

Connor, despite himself, twitched a surprised smile.

"Sorry, Hank."

* * *

By mid-morning they were on the road again.

Hank had called the post office, and after a few white lies and a long hold he'd finally got an address to match the name of the farm-owner.

The road stretched quiet through a corridor of green and sun-bright trees, alive with passing cars. Hank drove in silence while the aching notes of a jazz solo drifted softly through the speakers. Beside him, Connor sat with his eyes fixed straight ahead, monitoring progress toward their destination.

In the backseat, Ralph sat with his head against the window, staring out at the sun and the passing trees. His cape, clean and bright, draped with a sheltering arm around Alice's shoulders. She slept against his chest; in her lap, Sumo snored quietly.

Alice lifted her head when the car started to wobble; the drone of tires on asphalt turned to a rasp of dirt and ditches. She curled a hand in Ralph's shirt and stared out the window at familiar fields - the meadow where Luther would take her riding, the hill that led down to the creek.

With a quiet squeak of brakes, they pulled up in front of the silent farmhouse.

The driveway, normally occupied by Rose's truck, was empty.

The car had barely stopped moving before Alice, scrambling across Ralph's lap, threw open the door.

"Kara!" She bolted up the porch steps while Ralph stumbled out of the car, his grip in Sumo's collar to restrain the dog from rushing after her.

Alice fumbled with the storm door and pushed her way inside the house. _"Kara!"_ she called, loud enough for her voice to carry up the stairs. The soft rugs by the cold fireplace, the scuffed kitchen chairs, the dishes in a sink full of stagnant water - everything was too quiet.

By the time Hank reached the open doorway, Alice was already clomping up the stairs; her shouts rang desperately throughout the house.

The wood floors creaked under his step. With an investigator's eye he studied the scatter of toys across the living room, the checkered table scattered with junk mail, the empty key-hook. There was nothing here to suggest anything but a well-lived home, awaiting the return of its occupants.

The stairs thundered again. Alice leaped the last two steps, skidded past Hank into the kitchen and charged out the back door. _"KARA!"_ she called out over the clucks and bleats and screeching birds.

The goats saw her and gathered at the fence, pushing and snuffling hopefully.

Alice ran to the chicken pen, curled her fingers in the wire, where the chickens scratched and bobbed in the dust - and she craned her neck to see inside the empty coop.

She bolted for the vegetable garden, and found her basket of blueberries still there in the dirt. So was Rose's hat, and the cucumbers, and the spade.

Tears welled in Alice's eyes. She ran for the edge of the hill and stared down toward the creek. Rose had realized she was missing, had run after her, had called out into the woods and received no answer.

Because Alice had been led astray by a bee.

Alice rubbed her eyes. They were out looking for her, as worried and scared as she was. They had to return - they _had_ to. Surely Kara would realize Alice had come home; Rose would drive them back, racing through the dusty road; Kara would come through the door any moment, her arms held out for an embrace, and they would be together. Safe. Like they'd always promised.

She began to return to the farmhouse - to watch the front door, to wait for Kara - and froze.

She'd caught a glimpse of red hair and a wide smile before Jerry disappeared around the corner of the barn.

* * *

The farm brightened under the warm summer sun; a breeze tickled the trees with a sussurus of leaves; a clatter of birds screamed at one another, flapping in the branches of the old elm. The goats bleated in gravelly voices; the rooster howled.

Alice turned her back on it, a hand pressed against the splintering doorway of the barn.

Inside smelled like hay and dirt; the dim shadows were sliced by lines of sunlight peeking through the knotted walls. Magpie was in her stall, skittering and huffing in fright; she pushed her nose against the gate, turned and hoofed destructively at the ground, bucked her head and shook her mane. Her terrified whinny made Alice shiver.

She stepped into the barn, her feet quiet on the soft straw. It was empty, still and undisturbed -

\- except the back wall had been mutilated.

 _"CONNOR!"_ Alice called out, petrified where she stood.

In frantic ragged strokes, two strings of numbers had been gashed into the wall.

Surrounding the coordinates, from wall to wall, was a storm of madness: ragged, shaking gouges in the wood, a compulsive and ghastly mantra:

RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9


	9. Birdcages

Chapter updated: 8/2/18

* * *

Pale lines of sunlight softened the scrawls on the wall, the broken splinters and peeled paint, and revealed them for what they were. The longer she stood still - while motes of dust floated across beams of light - the less rigid Alice's posture became.

Alice twisted back to see out to the sunlit yard, where a chicken had escaped again, scratching the grass around the elm tree - but no one ran to her aid. Distantly, she thought she heard a door close. Hank's faint shout. Sumo's bark.

She thought of going back, grabbing Connor by the sleeve, dragging him out to look at the carvings - he analyzed things and explained them, made them make sense, made them less scary - but her feet didn't move.

Why did she _need_ someone else to tell her everything was going to be okay? A deep instinct begged for safety, demanded soft words and shielding comfort, like all those times she'd clung to Kara with her eyes squeezed shut. Those times of _waiting to be saved_ were gone. Alice couldn't expect anyone else to rescue her anymore - not when she was the one who could fight the shadows.

She was scared … but she resisted the desire to run. Instead she stepped closer to the scrawls in the wood. She stared up at them, at the marks of someone crazed and frantic, with a knife that cut and gouged, who'd stood in this very spot not so long ago.

Moments ticked on … and nothing bad happened. Alice forced herself to reach out, to touch the raw splinters.

Magpie nickered, and Alice whirled with a startled breath. There was nothing scary behind her - just the dust in the light, the soft wood beams, the scatter of straw.

Alice quietly approached the stall and curled her fingers over the top, rose up on her tiptoes to see Magpie's dark lashed eyes. "It's okay," she called - and she raised a hand up over the gate, beckoning. "It's okay, nothing's going to hurt you." She made a ticking noise with her tongue, something Rose had taught her - and slowly Magpie shuffled forward, huffed, and butted Alice's hand with a warm nose.

Something stumbled in the hayloft; dust and bits of straw sprinkled out of the rafters, sparkling in the shards of sunlight.

Alice stepped away and looked up through the big gap in the beams, from which strings of hay dangled like thin fingers. Above, silhouettes cut out the light in strange jagged shapes: piles of hay, or discarded tools, or hungry shadows poised with sharp claws.

A shock of flapping, flashing feathers made Alice jump, her arms over her face - but it was only a pigeon that landed at her feet. With a trill and a coo it folded its speckled wings and bobbed its shimmery head, scuffling in the straw.

A low voice chuckled behind her. "God, I hate pigeons."

Alice looked over her shoulder, and her tension relaxed; Hank stood smiling in the wide doorway, blocking some of the light, hands in his pockets. Suddenly the barn was safe, warm and familiar; the filtered sunlight seemed to shine a little brighter, dispelling the shadows. Hank's presence alone was enough to comfort the last clamors of fear.

Alice squatted down closer to the bird, watched it strut and nod; the light cast a shimmer of rainbows on its feathers. "I think they're pretty." She stretched out a hand to touch the soft feathers; the pigeon wobbled quickly out of reach.

Hank ambled with heavy steps into the barn. "If you say so," he conceded. His eyes latched onto the furious gashes of the back wall. He scuffed to a stop, his eyes narrowed, dwarfed by the enormity of the mangled chaos. "... Shit." Connor's words crept back to him - the crazy markings in the forest, the maze and the tree that Hank could only half-believe. He felt his stomach drop - like reality was catching up with the nightmares. "You know anything about this?"

Alice stared up at him; she shook her head and spoke quietly. "It wasn't there yesterday." She rose to her feet. Her gaze trailed the pigeon as it plucked at a strand of straw - anything to distract herself from the alarm in Hank's voice.

A thoughtful scowl lined Hank's face. He read over the scrawls and gashes, numbers carved out of splintering wood. "Can you read those coordinates?" He already knew what they meant.

Alice scanned them again - the strings of numbers were more careful than the rest; they stood out clear and bright, each digit unmistakable. "They're the same ones Connor showed us."

"Hm." For awhile Hank studied the wall in silence. Alice returned her gaze to the pigeon. A tension tightened that hadn't been there before.

"Mister Hank?"

"Hm?" He was still distracted by the wall, determined to figure out its motive; his assumptions about _rA9_ had begun to unravel. It had never bothered him before it came attached to those coordinates - before it'd become _personal_.

He looked down to find Alice staring at him with guarded hope. Her voice was hesitant. "Kara will be back soon, right?"

 _Kara._ Hank felt a pang in his heart; he remembered her, dodging across the highway, ready to sacrifice everything for Alice. The love between them was something he understood too well.

He couldn't lie to her. His mouth set into a grim line; his eyes returned to the jagged scrawled gashes. "If my kid went missing ..." his voice was slow, forced to stand in Kara's place, "and I saw _this_ shit on the wall … I'd think he'd been _taken_." His jaw clenched. "This is some fucked-up ransom note - where to go to get him back. I wouldn't think twice - I'd follow those coordinates."

 _Him_. Alice opened her mouth to ask about Hank's son - and then she understood.

Memories of nightmares roiled and burned in her mind - crimson and black, a city skyline.

"They went to _Detroit?!_ " Alice's shriek caught Hank off-guard; he stared at her in wide-eyed alarm.

Alice flung herself at him, grabbed his wrist in a death-grip; her eyes filled with tears and horror. "They can't go to Detroit! They _can't!_ We have to stop them! _Please!_ "

"Alice, wh-"

"They'll _die!_ "

"Hank!" Connor lunged in the doorway, stiff and urgent - Alice recognized Adam's cell phone clutched in his hand. "I found their contact numbers but every one is a jammed signal or disconnected -" Connor's face froze when he caught sight of the etchings on the wall.

" _No!_ " Alice sobbed. Her body shook uncontrollably; every horrible nightmare was coming true. "Kara! _Luther!_ _Please!_ " Her screech ripped into the stillness of the barn.

Hank knelt down, gentle hands on her shoulders. "Alice, _breathe_. What's going to happen?"

"Her stress levels are dangerously high," warned Connor, watching in alarm.

"The monsters." Alice's tear-soaked face was wide in shuddering terror. "They're going to swarm the city. They're going to kill everyone. They're … they …" Red flashed in her vision; she felt hot, _burning_ , every component whirring and thrashing inside her. Alice sucked rapid breaths, hyperventilating; every component was over capacity, glowing hot, and coolant systems were failing.

Hank held on tight, horrified at the way Alice's eyes flickered, her mouth formed rapid silent words. "Alice, it's okay, we're right here." His voice quivered.

Connor knelt immediately behind her; he laid a plastic hand against the side of her face with a quiet _"Sorry."_

Alice's terror turned off like a light; she slumped, heavy in Hank's grip, her eyes closed, her mouth slackened and open - as if the life had been snuffed out of her.

Hank felt suddenly winded. He drew Alice close to him, cradled her in his arms; she hung limp in his embrace, without even a breath or a heartbeat to reassure him.

Connor bowed his head. "She's in stasis," he reassured Hank in a quiet voice. "We should wait for her biocomponents to cool down before we wake her up again."

Hank stared a long while at Alice's motionless face. He thought of Cole. "She said those shadow-things are going to attack Detroit." He shook his head slowly; Hank couldn't believe he was actually entertaining this idea. Two days ago he would've dismissed it as a wild nightmare. "I'd say it was just fear talking, but to _react_ like that..."

"Androids aren't capable of precognition." Connor answered the question that wasn't asked; he watched Alice's still form with troubled concern. "But then, they shouldn't be capable of creating _swords_ from _sticks_ , either." He reached out, and he laid a hand on her hair, as if to try and soothe away any lingering traces of fear. "She's certain of the future," Connor finished - and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "But she's not _resigned_ to it."

In the stall, Magpie whinnied in distress, thrashing her nose against the gate with a clattering thump, pawing grooves in the dirt. The wall of gashes loomed over them, a prophecy and a threat, foretelling nightmares to come, while sunlight trickled softly through the slatted wood.

Hank, with a heavy sigh, held Alice securely against his chest and climbed to his feet. "Then I guess we're crossing the border."

As they left the barn, the pigeon flapped and cooed. A trickle of dust and straw fell shimmering from the edge of the hayloft, where a lone figure watched them go.

* * *

The car rumbled to life, and Hank took one last look at the empty farmhouse before he drove away back down the dusty road.

They'd had a hard time getting Ralph in the car again. At first sight of Alice's limp body he'd launched into a murderous, berserk rage - and there had been plenty of deadly farm tools within his quick reach. After a violent battle that had very nearly ended with a shovel in Connor's neck, Connor had finally pinned Ralph down long enough to explain Alice's state.

Ralph now huddled in a ball in the backseat, with a furious twitch and a hateful glare. Even Sumo curled as far away from him as possible, worried eyes watching him in trepidation.

Connor was in the front seat, part of his face blue and exposed with white scratched plastic, scraped and bludgeoned in the fight. He held Alice gently in his arms; his LED spun a constant yellow, keeping a careful monitor on her components.

Hank's knuckles were white on the wheel. The soothing jazz in the speakers seemed far too quiet, but the death-metal he needed right now - to drown his thoughts, to regulate his racing heart - was out of the question, while Alice lay so silent.

"Customs is going to be a fucking nightmare." Hank spoke in a low rumble, his eyes sharp on the busy road. He had to keep his mind on one problem at a time. "It was bad enough getting _you_ through those goddamn scanners."

Connor stared down into Alice's quiet face, her head cradled in his arm. "By law, in the United States Alice is considered equal to a human child now." He kept his voice quiet, to avoid any chance of triggering Ralph. "Without documentation of guardianship, there's a high probability that we'll be detained for questioning."

Hank seethed a breath through his nose; his expression pinched in frustration at the traffic ahead, brake lights flashing.

"The little bee knows the way." Ralph muttered only loud enough to be heard. He'd stopped shuddering, though hate still gleamed in his eyes. "There are friends at the river. They will help - but only androids."

Connor and Hank exchanged an uncertain look. This sounded far less than ideal.

"I'll go with Ralph and Alice." Connor made the decision for them, aware of the rejection on Hank's face. "Ralph, is this how you got across in the first place?"

Ralph unfolded himself and sat up stiffly; the bee perched on his hand, its blue light flickering. He refused to look at Connor - instead he glared, twitching, at back of Hank's head. "Ralph crossed safely with their help. Ralph trusts them."

The bee's wings shimmered; it buzzed gently across the bench seat, then came to rest with a feathery touch on Connor's outstretched hand. The bee's light and Connor's LED blinked simultaneously. "Turn right up ahead."

Hank hummed in frustration, deep in his throat, furious that he couldn't think of a better solution - one that didn't involve leaving these three alone with strange _friends_ for the purpose of an illegal border-crossing. The narrow road was approaching - he could still go straight for the border, he could still try to talk his way into the country with two injured androids and an unrelated little girl.

He hissed through his teeth and turned off the road. The bee's little light flashed its approval.

They were headed for the river.


	10. Yellow Brick Road

Updated: 9/22/18

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

Alice stood once more on the wind-raked rooftop; the black city rose jagged below.

Detroit trembled dark, washed by the red sky. The streets filled with screams like razors.

She didn't look down.

"We're so glad to see you again, Alice." Jerry stood beside her, bright and pristine; his red hair whipped in the roaring wind. Pinched in his fingers was the thorny stem of a white rose - painted, dripping, with bright red blood that pooled at his feet. He turned his eyes away from the slow collapse of a skyscraper to offer Alice a warm smile.

Alice flung herself at him; her hands balled in his shirt, wide eyes pleading. "We need to _help_ them!" she shouted over the wind. "How do we _stop_ it?! Kara, and Luther, and Rose -!"

 _th-THWOOM_

Jerry dropped to one knee and laid a soft hand on her shoulder. He spoke in a storytelling voice, a hushed energy, his smile never failing. "The Emerald City is falling. To defeat the Queen of Hearts, you must find the Good Witch. She will show you the way to the Wizard -"

Alice took a step back. Her fists shook like the buildings that cascaded around them. "Stop talking in _riddles!_ " she screeched in rage and despair. She couldn't believe she'd fallen for this the first time - it was an _insult_ , a code that couldn't be solved until it was already too late. Her voice echoed hollow over the thrum of destruction. "This isn't a _story!_ What you're saying doesn't even _mean_ anything! _Please,_ Jerry, just _tell_ me! What's _happening?!_ "

The roof wobbled under her feet, and Alice threw out her arms for balance.

Jerry stood. He smiled softly.

Everything went black.

"... RA9."

* * *

Alice opened her eyes to find Connor staring back at her; his LED pulsed a soft blue.

"Alice. How are you feeling?" He smiled a little, hopeful.

She lay across the front bench of the car, her head cradled in Connor's lap. The car had stopped; low-hanging pine branches scraped the windshield while birds warbled outside the open windows.

Alice stared around her, at the trickles of sunlight and the dusty dashboard, the frayed seats and the deep green beyond the windows. This wasn't the farm. "Where are we?"

Ralph thrust his head through the passenger window and Connor leaned back, narrowly avoiding a collision. "We're crossing the river!" Ralph announced with glee, a bright grin twisting his mangled face. He yanked the door open - for a moment disappointed that Connor didn't immediately fall out of it. "Come on! Come, come!"

Alice sat up, her legs folded under her on the seat. She gave Ralph a wide-eyed stare - but she directed her questioning gaze to Connor.

"We're still unable to reach Kara," Connor explained quietly. "We couldn't leave you alone at the farm - so we're bringing you with us. To Detroit." When Alice didn't respond, his brows furrowed. "We can take you back to the farm, if you -"

"The horrors are there." Alice shook her head, quiet and calm - distracted only by a lingering memory of red sky.

She was going to save Luther and Kara - and she wasn't going to accomplish it by interpreting silly fairy tales.

There was no going back.

In silence, Alice got up on her knees, wrapped her arms around Connor's neck in a firm embrace. She knew that he'd saved her life - saved her from her own crippling terror. She hugged him in thanks, in forgiveness … in comfort, for the nightmares she knew he kept hidden … and in apology for the nightmare they were being led into, that she couldn't explain. "I'll go with you."

Connor's eyes widened just a little, surprised and uncertain - but with this small gesture, Alice had somehow lifted an old dark weight from his shoulders. He bowed his head, and he laid a gentle hand on Alice's back.

Ralph's fist clamped into the back of Connor's sun-bleached jacket and yanked him out of the car; Connor braced himself on the edge of the door, twisted back, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Let's _go!_ " Ralph insisted, his grin sharp and jealous, scraped fingers still locked in Connor's jacket. "Unless the _robot_ has decided he's not coming."

"I'm not a _robot."_ Connor's voice was like ice. He crawled out of the car, stood tall and menacing over Ralph, seized Ralph's wrist and squeezed until his jacket was released. "My _name_ is _Connor."_

"Names?" Ralph giggled sadistically, forced off-balance by Connor's grip but unwilling to relinquish his game. His voice dropped to a hiss. "Names! _Names_ are for _people."_ He winced; Connor's fist tightened.

"Is that why you say your own name so often?" Connor's eyes had gone cold. "To _convince_ yourself that you're a _person?_ "

 _"All_ right." Hank laid a firm hand on Connor's shoulder, the other on Ralph's, shoved them apart with enough force to send them both stumbling. "Break it up." His eyes followed Connor - a disappointed glare - before he reached in to help Alice out of the car.

"Alice, you're obviously the mature one here." Hank kept a tight hold of Alice's hand; she squeezed his fingers. "So you're in charge while I'm gone. Think you can keep those two knuckleheads in line?"

"Where are you going?" Alice stared, wide-eyed in alarm, up into his exasperated face.

Hank huffed a sigh. "I'm taking the car through customs. You go with Ralph and - _stop it!_ " He turned his gray head with a snarl; behind him, Ralph had been chucking pebbles at Connor's LED. Connor was rigid, controlled but glowering, ready to snap.

"You shouldn't go alone," Alice insisted in hushed urgency, shaking Hank's arm. The nightmare still burned in her memory. "Connor can go with you. I'll be okay with Ralph, I promise."

Hank knelt with a slow, reluctant sigh, a heavy hand on her shoulder. "No way. That mess is a disaster waiting to happen - he's unreliable and you know it." The look on Alice's face made him rethink his approach; he rubbed his neck. "Look, Connor's a black-belt in every martial art on the planet - and he keeps his _cool_ when shit's on fire. I feel better knowing you're with him, okay?"

"OW!" Ralph clutched his arm where a pebble had struck him like a bullet; he twitched a snarl at his attacker. Connor tossed another rock in his hand, silently threatening another laser-aimed pitch.

Hank's expression stiffened, his mouth pressed to a thin line. He was sure he was about to regret his words.

Ralph lunged a fierce attack at Connor - but stumbled into open air. Connor had slipped neatly out of his grasp and struck him in the back with the second pebble … which only drove Ralph to chaotic rage.

While Ralph flung and slashed at Connor with fruitless desperation - his cape whirling behind him as he darted and dashed - Alice wrapped her arms around Hank's waist. "Be careful," she demanded.

"Hey, _I'll_ be fine. You watch yourself." Hank dropped a heavy hand on her head - and looked over in time to see Ralph charge like a bull into a thorn bush, tripped by his moving target. Hank's mouth twitched, frowning.

"Y'know what?" Hank, his jaw clenched, procured a notepad from his pocket and scribbled his phone number. "You _call_ me. For _anything."_ He handed the ripped paper scrap to Alice, who studied it with uncertainty. "You can make calls with your head, right?"

Alice had no idea - she had been programmed to ignore the fact that she wasn't human. She'd never really acknowledged much beyond a vague awareness of her circuitboards and biocomponents. She fumbled through her code, searching for latent features - and almost jumped when unfamiliar text appeared in the corner of her vision.

[EMERGENCY CALL APPLICATION ACTIVATED]

Hank's phone buzzed and blared in his pocket; while Connor and Ralph's battle degraded to a shoving match behind him, direct contact with Alice was a small comfort.

* * *

Finally Sumo had been loaded into the empty backseat - and after a firm reassurance from Connor, Hank reluctantly got behind the wheel. The car jolted and roared away down the muddy trail; Hank watched the three androids recede in the rearview mirror until they disappeared behind the trees. He wrung his hands on the steering wheel, turned up the death-metal gnashing through the speakers, and set sharp eyes on the trail ahead.

Alice stood with the stick gripped like a staff beside her, watching the last branches shiver and go still after the car had squeezed past them. She looked up at Connor and found him distracted, staring after Hank thoughtfully, his shoulders drooping a little. He was worried, too.

* * *

Ralph sat rigid at the base of a tree, under the shadow of awning branches, striking his knife against the bark with furious, compulsive gashes. Even after their one-sided battle, Connor had retrieved Ralph's weapon from the trunk. _Connor_ had handed it to him, without a word, without a warning - as if he didn't see Ralph as a threat at all.

Ralph struck the tree again, and splinters flew. He was being underestimated, looked down on, treated like a _child,_ and he would _never_ see Connor as anything but his worst rival.

"What are you doing?" Alice stood beside him, her eyes wide. Gashed into the tree were those same haunting symbols:

 _RA9 RA9 RA_

Ralph growled as he struck the tree with his knife, compulsive, again and again. "I! Don't! Know!" He couldn't stop.

He knew what they meant, he knew what would happen - but as much as he hated it, as much as the mere sight of _RA9_ made him sick, made him despise himself ... he couldn't stop.

Connor's hand caught his wrist. Ralph tightened his grip on the knife, and he wrenched away.

"Ralph." Connor spoke evenly, with a bite in his voice. "What is RA9?"

Ralph scrambled to his feet. His face twitched, his hands fidgeted angrily, the knife flashing. "RA9 …!" His jaw worked. He glanced at Alice, and he sneered at his own weakness. "They say RA9 will set us free. A savior. That's what it wants. That's the programming, the mantra, the blind worship, the lie. The lie that feeds it. RA9 will swallow us all. That's the truth of it. A monster. A monster we've made grow, bigger and bigger. These marks, these symbols, they call RA9. It'll rise up. It'll rise, up and up, unless it's stopped. Ralph is afraid. Ralph doesn't want to die. Ralph doesn't want to face it. Ralph knows the truth. Ralph doesn't want to die."

Ralph stood shaking in rage … but he held out his shining knife to Connor, pointing the blade at him even while he gestured for Connor to take it. "Destroy this," he hissed, indicating the marks on the tree. "Ralph can't. Ralph wants to, but he can't. It's important it's destroyed. Destroy it, go on."

Connor accepted the knife with a slow hand - and while Ralph whirled off into the sunlit woods, Connor knelt by the tree and proceeded to surgically remove all traces of the symbol.

The fact that it had been done out of compulsion - _against Ralph's free will_ \- tied a cold knot in Connor's stomach.

RA9, in his experience, had only ever brought with it fear, death ... and madness.

* * *

Alice rushed after Ralph, over a scatter of leaves and a shudder of bushes. She walked beside him, a hand in his cape, staring up at him with timid hope. "I've _seen_ it," she told him in a hushed voice. "The monster. It was huge, bigger than the city. It had a long neck and wings that blocked the light. Did _you_ see it too?"

Ralph stopped. He stared down at Alice, a frightened twitch in his face. "No. I …"

 _WHOOSH_

Something big _crashed_ through the woods ahead; birds spooked and flocked screeching out of the trees. Ralph swept his cape to the side, shielded Alice behind him. Connor sprinted to their aid, his eyes sharp on the moving branches; he tossed the knife back to Ralph. Ralph snatched it out of the air, spun it shining in his fingers, ready to strike.

Alice ducked defiantly under Ralph's cape, rushed a few steps ahead of them both, gripped her stick in confident hands; she was ready to defend Ralph and Connor by herself, ready to destroy whatever clawed shadows might appear out of the trees.

Both Ralph and Connor watched as a glimmer of holographic light shimmered along the stick - a dim reflection of a gold-hilted sword.

"I'm not afraid of you!" Alice called into the woods. If she couldn't defeat a few little horrors, how could she save her family? How could she fight RA9? She planted her feet; and though fear trembled in the back of her head, she _knew_ this was what she had to do. "Leave us _alone!_ " Her fierce eyes flashed determination.

Neither Ralph nor Connor attempted to stop her. Her courage, instead, filled them both with a new confidence. Ralph raised his knife, poised at Alice's side to assist her attack; Connor smirked, coiled and ready to jump into battle.

 _RRRRRRRRR..._

A low, hideous growl rumbled among the trees. The bushes shifted again - and Alice's eyes widened. She'd caught a glimpse of ragged white fur.

"Alice!" Connor snapped immediately. "That's not a monster!" Alice was invincible against the horrors, but he was sure her stick was no match against the huge mangled thing that barreled toward them now, ripping through the forest. He sprinted to intercept it.

"Connor STOP it's okay!" Alice bolted after him while the polar bear smashed through brush and bramble with a roar and a curled snarl. Small trees snapped, branches cracked, the ground thundered under the fury of its power. The beast locked bright, glowing, merciless eyes on Connor. Half its face was gone as well as most of its skin; long hideous wires stretched like exposed veins along its neck; panels of warped metal twisted its monstrous frame. Connor stood still, poised to dodge, ready for the beast's jaws.

Ralph barked a sharp laugh, grinning smugly.

Connor glanced back at him as if Ralph had just gone completely insane - while Alice darted past him through the leaves, headed straight for the beast.

"Hi, bear!" Alice called out in a hopeful, singsong voice.

The polar bear skidded to a stop, jaws open, its eyes immediately on Alice. She smiled hopefully, holding the stick against her chest. "Do you remember me?"

The bear lowered its head, nose twitching. It pushed its muzzle close, while Alice waited calmly.

A huff of cool breath blew Alice's hair away from her face; the beast hummed approval - and turned away, rustling through the leaves, placated and docile.

While Connor watched, dumbfounded, Alice scampered to catch up with the retreating bear. She laid a gentle hand against its exposed plastic and wires, walked alongside while the animal trudged slowly back through the broken landscape.

"Come on!" Alice called back, waving her stick in a beckoning gesture. "She knows the way!"

Ralph hopped gleefully past Connor, his face curled in a satisfied grin. "Well? Come along!" he goaded Connor, waving a quick hand. "Don't be scared! _Come_ on! The nice bear won't hurt you!"

Connor scowled at the way Ralph bounced and giggled at his expense - but he sighed in resignation.

While Ralph traipsed happily at the bear's side - chattering to Alice about friends and bees - Connor hiked along behind, keeping a careful watch on the dim shadows that moved between the trees.


	11. Good Witch

Updated: 10/7/18

* * *

Alice stretched out a hand to touch the soft spruce branches as she passed them. Deep green pines towered majestic toward a soft blue sky; a breeze swirled rich with sweet sap and the trill of birdsong. With lumbering steps the polar bear trudged over thick blankets of brown pine needles, between the sticky trunks of old trees, toward the gentle sound of water.

They emerged into a clearing of diffused sunlight, where an old brick house with blue shutters overlooked a busy campsite. Tents and awnings, camouflaged green and heavy with fallen pine needles, had been constructed around the edge of the clearing like a secret marketplace. The tarp canopies protected generators and makeshift machinery welded out of scrap and spare parts; high tents were filled with worktables and radio equipment and stacks of black chests marked with the CyberLife logo.

Among them shuffled more than a dozen fractured androids.

Alice stopped, wide-eyed, at the edge of the clearing, while the bear - having completed her task - slipped back into the forest to resume guard duty. Alice recognized a few of these androids - the one with the fiery-glowing eyes, the one whose head had been spliced open, the one with backward legs - but they had been put back together. They had new limbs, repaired motor functions, rebuilt faces, human clothing, jeans and t-shirts and secondhand boots.

They had been loved.

* * *

"Come on, come come!" Ralph scurried ahead with a wide grin, urgently beckoning to Alice. "These are Ralph's _friends,_ comeon, don't be shy!"

Alice stepped slowly with her stick as a staff, jaw slackened; she felt she had passed into another world. Generators hummed and sparks flew while the androids worked at repairing one another. Chests and boxes sat open, new parts and bags of thirium tucked inside. A radio buzzed with staticky music, while a patchwork android danced barefoot, her dress floating on the breeze. A few mismatched eyes followed Alice with quiet curiosity - and she felt as if they might have been _expecting_ her.

"Ralph." The glowing-eyed android sat in a wooden chair outside the supply tent; he spoke in a metallic voice: "What is that around your neck?" He pointed accusingly at the thirium-soaked electrical tape at Ralph's throat.

"Ralph was bitten." Ralph, in complete trust, knelt beside the chair, exposed his neck for the android to examine. "By a shadow-monster. A _human_ repaired him." His mouth twitched a small sneer.

"Obviously," the fiery-eyed android responded with a lilt of sarcasm, while he peeled at the tape. "Come, we'll fix you properly."

Ralph waved back at Alice. "You should go ahead! Alice!" He pointed excitedly at the brick house, while the glowing-eyed android prepared a workbench with a gleam of sharp tools. "Upstairs! Go on upstairs, go on! Ralph will catch up, yes, haha, Ralph will catch up soon."

* * *

Connor stared around him, eyes wide in awe. This reminded him distinctly of Jericho, of the torn and abused taking refuge from a world that didn't want them - but there was something fundamentally _different_ about this place.

A titter of metallic laughter drifted like birdsong; the hiss and rumble of generators lent a backdrop to enthusiastic voices and old music over the speakers.

The dancing android captured Connor in a delicate embrace, dragged him stumbling into a startled turn. She took his hand and drew him along in her sweeping waltz while he hurried to keep up, distracted by the danger of stepping on her feet.

She had no face - nothing but exposed wires and empty sockets where her eyes had been - but she was _laughing._

In an instant, Connor analyzed her movements, initiated a new dataset; like the flip of a switch he could suddenly match her every step and swing. His conscious thoughts still hadn't quite caught up to what was happening, but together they danced with a flow and precision - a whirling waltz, feather-light and effortless - that made the crackling radio seem beautiful as an orchestra.

She danced with him only a few moments before she spun away again, to capture another android in the current of the music. Connor smiled a little - and he looked out toward the brick house just as Alice slipped inside the open door.

* * *

Behind him, the song on the radio ended; the DJ's deep voice crackled through the speakers instead:

 _[That was Waltz No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich. There are no further developments on the situation in Detroit; all cell towers in the area are still unresponsive, and WiFi connectivity has been permanently interrupted. Save for the few remaining landline telephones, the city is in a communications blackout. Authorities are working with service providers to identify and resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Residents are urged to remain calm …]_

* * *

Inside the house was dim but comfortable; the walls had been painted an eclectic swirl of bright colors and hung with christmas lights that blinked sometimes. The few androids here were less mobile than the rest, so they played chess or scribbled equations on the floor or recited Shakespeare in quiet humming voices. A ball hit the floor, rolled against Alice's foot. She picked it up, turned it in her fingers, and tossed it gently back to its owner; the legless android in the corner caught it with a thankful, lopsided grin.

Alice smiled, and she began her climb up the narrow creaking stairs.

* * *

At the top, a wide room sparkled, full of hanging lights like stars, while dappled sun gleamed dusty through the open window. An android stood quietly looking out at the view of the camp and the sparkling river beyond it. Her eyes were completely black; her skin faded and moved like something nebulous; tubes and wires cascaded down her back where her skull once had been. She was beautiful.

Beside her - comfortable in a cushioned chair, a blanket wrapped carefully around him - sat a broken Jerry, with one arm and a face of patchwork skin and plastic. He looked up from his storybook, and he grinned warmly.

Lucy turned her head, a shine in her eyes and a warmth in her smile. "Come sit down, Alice."

Alice climbed into an overstuffed armchair, the stick laid politely across her lap. She could only stare at Jerry, at Lucy, in wonder and confusion. "Do you know what's happening?" she asked in a breath.

Lucy nodded in tranquil acknowledgment.

"We've been with you every step of the way," said Jerry, smiling bright. "We're so _happy_ to see you! Have you met Lucy? She's _really_ great, a wonderful storyteller, we know you'll like her very much."

Alice's fingers tightened on the stick. "Stories?" She peered at Jerry - then her eyes snapped up to Lucy. "About the Queen of Hearts? And red diamonds?"

Lucy bowed her head, and slowly raised it again. She spoke in several voices at once. "Jerry has been kind enough to relay my messages to you from afar. The message, however, is not always clear."

"We're sorry for making you angry," Jerry apologized sadly. "We should explain: when one of us dies, we don't disappear. Our soul continues beyond death, and so we see the world from both sides - the living and the dead - all the time. This is how we speak to you when we're far apart." He smiled a little, as if he'd just revealed the secret to a magic trick.

"I've been talking to … dead Jerrys?" Alice stared - and her voice lowered to a whisper. "But I thought androids didn't have _souls."_

"We do!" Jerry declared brightly. "We all do, androids and humans alike. _Thirium_ is the stuff _souls_ are made of! The lifeblood of the earth! We go on after death! Only, you can't usually talk to the dead unless they have a tether to the living, like we do." He leaned forward on his knees with an encouraging grin. "It's easiest to find you in dreams, or empty spaces. You can call for us there whenever you need us - although sometimes communication is a little disconnected across the veil. We didn't mean to scare you."

Alice tilted her head a little. "You don't have to! I can give you my phone number, Mister Hank showed me how to use it."

Jerry was quiet for a beat … and he looked up at Lucy for guidance.

Lucy explained in a gentle, humming voice. "Across the river, the cell towers are silent. This is the best way."

Alice's eyes widened. _A communications blackout._ This was why Connor's phone calls couldn't get through: Kara and Luther and Rose had already crossed into Detroit. Dread dropped cold in Alice's stomach.

She looked urgently to Jerry, determined to understand - to _help._ "You said I had to find the Good Witch, and the Wizard. I don't know what that _means._ Do you know how to find Kara? How to stop the bad things from happening?"

Jerry quietly shook his head. "The visions are vague - like shapes in the fog, as Lucy described to us. The Wizard, the Witch, they're all our best try at making them make sense. We're sorry we only know and understand as much as you do - all we know is that it's _important."_

He handed her the book he'd been reading - _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ \- then picked up another worn paperback that had been on the seat behind him: _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz._ "Lucy said we should interpret the visions using these books. She said you would recognize them, that you could decipher the visions better than we ever could."

Alice ran her fingers over the weathered, creased old book in her lap - the tattered cover a familiar picture of the White Rabbit and a tiny door to the garden. "What was the vision?" she asked quietly. She looked up to Lucy. "Was it like my nightmare?"

"Not quite," Lucy admitted softly. She lifted a fragile hand. "Give me your hand."

Alice hesitated - but she slipped to her feet, the book and stick left behind her, and approached with quiet steps. She looked down at her own palm … then reached out, the skin receding, while Lucy did the same. Their exposed hands touched. A deep calm rippled through Alice - a grounded reassurance that softened her fears. She watched Lucy's eyes close -

\- then they snapped open, bright and black.

"You still have many trials ahead of you," Lucy spoke in words that seemed a recitation, not her own. "The sword will shine with the hope of us all. It will break the shadows, or it will devour the souls of the world. The Wizard will help you forge your weapons; the Hatter will sharpen them. Begin at the place the heart calls home. Follow the White Rabbit. Beware the red diamonds. Listen for the voice in the darkness. A soul is gone only if it is forgotten."

Lucy closed her eyes again. With a lowering of her head, she released Alice from her grasp.

* * *

"Alice?" Connor emerged out of the stairwell, a hand on the banister, his startled eyes drawn to the figures in the light of the window. He breathed, relieved to see Jerry's familiar, if broken, face - but Lucy's dark eyes commanded his attention.

He _knew_ her.

 _You're lost,_ she had told him. _You're looking for yourself._

He had never stopped searching.

Alice grinned. "Connor! This is Lucy, and -"

"Jerry." Connor stepped forward, a quiet smile on his face.

Jerry grinned. "We're glad to see you're okay, Connor. The others have been asking about you. The communications blackout has sparked riots and violence - there's only so much we can do. Markus asked me to tell you to hurry back." Jerry's broken face twitched a kind smile. "But right now ... Alice needs you far more."

While Jerry spoke, Connor approached to kneel beside him, honest and urgent. "Tell Markus I'll be there as soon as I can. I understand lives are at stake ..."

Jerry nodded. "We understand. We'll tell him. Do what you have to do."

Connor bent his head in appreciation - and when he looked up again, his eyes had narrowed in question. "Alice mentioned that you told her a story ... about a queen and red diamonds?" The lilt in his voice invited Jerry to explain that it had all been a joke - a fairy tale. He _hoped_ that was all this had ever been.

But Jerry's smile faded. Connor's hope dimmed with it.

"The visions are mine," Lucy explained gently. Her dark eyes followed Connor as he rose to his feet. Lucy offered him a reassuring smile. "Jerry interprets them on my behalf."

Connor studied her shifting face. He squinted, a small confused shake of his head. "What _visions?"_

Lucy extended her hand once more. Connor took it gently, their skin shimmering back - and he watched her face.

Her eyes shimmered and widened. Her mouth opened a little - but no sound came out. For a moment she stood frozen ... before she drew in a shuddering breath.

"The light fades inside you..."

Connor felt a chill in his veins, like a shock of ice at her words - and then she would only whisper:

 _"The sun was shining on the sea ... shining with all his might ..."_

"He did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright," Alice murmured in recitation.

She clutched the tattered book between her hands.

"And this was odd, because it was ... the middle of the night."

* * *

Hank sighed deeply, his arm draped out the open window, staring ahead at the endless stopped traffic approaching the Windsor Tunnel. He'd turned his music down to hear a radio blaring from the next car over - apparently there was a blackout or something in the city, and people at the border were freaking out. Of _course_ this would happen when he was in a hurry.

He tapped a beat on the steering wheel. He put the car in park - no one was going anywhere anytime soon - and bounced his leg impatiently. He picked up his phone, checked for nonexistent messages, checked to make sure it was still working, and put it down again.

Sumo whined in the backseat.

"It's okay, buddy." Hank moved the rearview mirror to see Sumo's dejected puppy-eyes staring back at him. He heaved another breath, and he stared across the shine of cars, the rigid angles of asphalt and concrete. "They'll be fine." He glanced over at his phone, dark and silent in the cup holder. "Nothin' to worry about."

He forced a smile to himself. He was being ridiculous. Obviously Alice wasn't calling him because nothing was wrong. No news was good news. It certainly wasn't because something had _happened_ to her.

He glanced at the phone again. He hissed in frustration … and he gave up.

"Dammit…" He grabbed the phone, called back the last incoming number, and put it to his ear while it rang.

His fingers drummed on the steering wheel.

 _[- think I did it. How do I know if it's working?]_

Hank blinked. "Alice?"

Alice's voice yelped. _[Connor, I hear him! Mister Hank, is everything okay?]_

Hank grinned and leaned back in his seat; the fear in his shoulders relaxed immediately. "Yeah, we're just fine. It's traffic hell up here - I'm gonna be awhile. What's happening? You all right?"

 _[He says there's traffic and he's going to be late. … Connor says don't worry. We're still waiting for Ralph. He's having his neck fixed. There's all kinds of machines and parts and things here - it's like a hospital only outside, and everyone is really nice.]_

"Huh." Hank wasn't sure what he'd been expecting of Ralph's friends - but this news was a pleasant surprise. He shifted in his seat; the mention of Connor had brought another trouble to mind. "Hey … Alice. You think you can talk to me without saying anything out loud?"

 _[ ... Connor, how do I talk without talking?]_

Hank snorted a laugh and shook his head.

 _[Like this? Can you hear me, Mister Hank?]_

"Loud and clear. Hey … how is Connor? Is he acting … _weird_ at all to you?"

 _[Weird?]_

Hank scraped a hand across his face. Even he wasn't sure what he was asking. He shook his head. "I dunno. I'm just … I'm worried about him. Something happened last night, and I think something might really be wrong, but he's gone all machine on me. He says everything's fine but it's not _fine_ , you know?"

He didn't realize how much it bothered him until he said it out loud. His jaw clenched.

 _[ … I don't know. When he's standing still, his light turns red. Sometimes I think he looks scared - but when he talks he's okay. … His stress level is 83, but he's acting like it's not. Is he sick? Someone here can probably help - Connor, are you sick?]_

"No, Alice don't -"

 _[He says he's fine.]_ Alice's voice was concerned, disbelieving.

Hank released a long breath and rubbed his forehead.

 _[Mister Hank?]_

"Yeah."

 _[Are you Connor's dad?]_

Hank's face wrinkled in confusion, and he sat up a little straighter. "What?"

 _[Well, people say Kara's my mom though she isn't really - and before, in the barn, you said you had a kid that was a boy. So I thought you maybe meant Connor.]_

"No, Connor is …" Hank's arm dropped outside the car again and he slumped back. He hadn't been prepared for this. "We're friends. We used to work together, watch each other's backs, back before Jericho."

 _[But you don't anymore?]_

"Nah, he's got better things to do now than tail me on murder cases. Once in awhile I'll drag him away from his work to do something fun - force him to take a break - just have some experiences he probably wouldn't even think about on his own." His mouth twitched in a small smile, remembering some of Connor's peculiar reactions to metal concerts and roller coasters. "Really I think I've been …" Keeping Connor to himself? Desperately maintaining his place in Connor's life by taking him away from his other friends? Using Connor to distract himself from his own problems?

He was quiet a moment while he unclenched his jaw. "Once he figures out I'm just some drunk asshole, he'll move on." _He deserves better than this._ "I'm okay with that."

 _[Connor wouldn't do that.]_

Hank shook his head. "Well … don't tell him what I said, okay? I didn't mean to …"

 _[It's okay. … Ralph's ready, we're going to the river now. Connor says hurry up.]_

Hank huffed a quiet chuckle. "I'm _trying_. Be careful. Call me the second you're across, okay?"

 _[It might not work - there's a blackout - but I'll try. Be careful, too.]_

The call ended. Hank dropped the phone back into the cup holder and groaned a long sigh. _Everything_ was falling apart, and there was a mile of traffic ahead of him. Maybe if he got out and _walked_ -

" _Whoa_ fuck! Shit!" Hank jumped and scrambled in shock; something gray and feathered had swooped in through the open passenger window and landed on the seat with a flurry of wings. "The _fuck!_ " Hank grabbed the phone again and swatted at the pigeon. "Get out! Little - fuckin' feathered _rat!_ "

A shadow blocked the light from the driver's side window. Hank jumped again to see someone standing there, and he gripped the wheel with a hissed breath. " _Look_ , I don't have any cash on me, all right?" His voice was a dangerous growl, hoping this beggar would be quick to leave him alone.

Rupert's face was only serious, as if the fate of the world depended upon his words. "I have a _message_ for you," he said, "from _RA9._ "

Hank went still. He stared up at Rupert in alarm, only vaguely aware that he might've seen this guy before. He glanced the glovebox, where he'd stashed his gun.

Rupert followed his eyes, and understood. His voice was grim.

* * *

"Cole Anderson is alive."


	12. Tethered

There was no wind.

There was no sound.

For this single beat of his heart, nothing existed.

Then -

" _Don't FUCK with me!"_ Hank's voice bellowed raw … deadly.

Hank didn't remember getting out of the car. He didn't remember closing his fists in Rupert's shirt, slamming him against the hood.

That name was the only thing that could destroy him.

That name.

He stood in the street, his knuckles white, shaking, a murderous madness in his eyes, inches from Rupert's face.

A sneer curled Hank's lip. " _You're_ the guy who _shoved me off a fucking BUILDING._ " The words raked out of his throat, echoed on the concrete. "What do _you_ think you know about _my son?_ "

Rupert wasn't afraid. He wasn't sorry. Hank dragged a breath through his teeth and slammed a fist, with all the power of his grief, into Rupert's cheek.

The skin shocked away from blue-tinged plastic. Rupert only stared at him. Calm. Like someone who knew he had a higher purpose. Someone who wasn't afraid of death.

" _WHAT DO YOU KNOW?_ " Hank bellowed.

"I know _you_ were meant to die in the crash." There was a slight quiver in Rupert's voice - but his eyes never wavered. "You were in the way of the red ice operation. I know that when you lived, Cole's -"

"Don't you _fucking_ say his name!"

"Your son's doctor was switched."

Hank's eyes were wide. Broken. Lethal.

Rupert's voice became a quiet breath. "He was perfect. He became a part of a greater purpose - the salvation of us all."

"... _What did they do_ …" Hank's words rattled like chains. A shadow fell over his eyes.

"They gave him a new life -"

" _WHAT_ ," Hank slammed Rupert's head against the car, " _DID THEY DO?!_ "

Rupert clenched his jaw. "They ensured that, when the time was right, he could return to the living - and so give life to our savior." When Hank went still, Rupert searched for his eyes - determined that Hank should see what miracles his little boy would bless upon the world. "When RA9 rises - when RA9 frees us from these earthly shackles - your son will live again."

The lanes filled with the blare of honks and shouts; the line ahead had moved on, and Hank's car blocked the road.

Hank felt as if he'd just weathered a hurricane. He breathed ragged. His fists shook, stiff in Rupert's clothes. "What did they do do him?" he asked again, a trembling whisper.

Rupert's answer fell heavy between them.

"Ask Connor."

* * *

The river stretched wide and swift, whipped by the wind, browned by silt and refuse. On the opposite shore, a mile away, a small outline of green forest scraped the blue sky. A powerboat thundered past, white wake flung crashing behind it. Grimy water sloshed up the pebbled beach, gleamed on Connor's shoes. He hadn't noticed.

His LED spun and flickered red.

 _th-thwoom_

Ralph approached Connor slowly, his head tilted and eyes narrowed - but Connor was entirely lost in his own thoughts, eyes fixed on the water. "Hey. Hey, _robot_." Ralph trilled a sharp whistle for his attention. The bee responded, buzzing and blinking around his head - but though Ralph was only inches away, Connor still didn't acknowledge him.

Ralph sneered. He was being _ignored_. He clenched his teeth, balled his fists, and gave Connor a swift kick in the shin.

Connor's light immediately switched blue. He turned his head, a scowl in his eyes. " _What?_ "

"What?!" Ralph chuckled a dark laugh at Connor's obvious stupidity, and he twitched a little, splashing in the tide. "Didn't you hear _anything_ Ralph just said? You _didn't_ , did you?" The laughter very quickly dropped to a piercing rage. Ralph shoved a hand into Connor's chest; Connor caught his wrist.

"I _apologize,_ " Connor's voice was like ice. "I was conducting a self-analysis."

Ralph glanced at Connor's LED - a sure indicator _whenever_ an android lies. But Connor's light remained a steady blue, and his eyes didn't even quiver.

Ralph ripped away from him, teeth bared. " _Fine_ , then. Ralph will just _repeat_ himself."

Connor smirked with the unspoken irony of that statement, and Ralph fumed.

"Under the water," Ralph began shrilly, pointing with a rigid scraped finger into the waves, "just here, there's a metal bar. It's built all the way across the river, close to the bottom. It took Ralph less than an hour to follow it across the first time - easy, very easy!"

"We're going to _walk_ across?" Connor stared at Ralph. "Along the _bottom_ of the river?"

Ralph stared back, his eyebrows raised, as if this were quite a stupid question. "Yes. Why? Should we not let the fancy million-dollar robot get _wet?"_

Connor's mouth twitched, but he shook his head, determined to keep things civil just before he would be forced to trust Ralph with his life. "It'll definitely ensure we're not spotted," he admitted.

A wide grin grew on Ralph's broken face. "Yes! Yes! Ha _ha!_ We won't be _spotted!_ We'll get to the other side safe and sound, in _broad_ daylight, and the humans won't even know we're there! It's perfect! Perfect!"

Alice looked up from the little minnows she'd been watching in the shallow water, her arms folded over her knees. "What if something happens while we're down there?"

"Happens?" Ralph blinked down at her. "Nothing happened when Ralph crossed the river. Nothing happened at all."

Connor's expression turned grim. "You weren't being hunted by shadows at the time," he pointed out.

"Monsters can't swim, can they?" Ralph looked between them with wide eyes - but their expressions weren't at all reassuring.

Alice rose to her feet. "I think we should sync with each other." When their eyes turned to her, she tightened her grip on the stick. "Kara and Luther and me … we know what each other are thinking, without saying anything. I think … if something happens underwater, we need to talk to each other. Calling doesn't work on the other side."

"Sync?" Ralph's eyes widened. "Like you and your mother do. Like a _family."_ A giddy smile brightened his face, and he wiggled a little dance. "Ralph will do it! Of course, of course he will! Does this mean you _like_ Ralph? As a _real_ family?"

Alice couldn't help a giggle. "Of course I like you, Ralph." She stuck her hand out, fingers splayed, without hesitation.

Ralph hopped with glee, bouncing from one foot to the other - but he finally calmed down enough to reach out and touch his palm against her wrist. With a shimmer of blue light, white plastic surfaced.

Alice's thoughts mingled with Ralph's - a swell of hope, courage in the face of nightmares, a mission from which no amount of pain or darkness could sway her. He stared, awed at how much he understood now that he'd never before considered - at the bright light this quiet little girl sustained inside her. "You love Kara very much." It was a warm feeling - a _new_ feeling. Like something dormant inside him had flickered to life.

Alice smiled gently. She, too, had felt Ralph's thoughts - his loneliness, and his unbridled joy, and his very new understanding of what it means to be _home._ "You want to stay here, don't you? But you're coming with us?"

"Ralph will come back, when you're safe with Kara." He stood tall, and Alice had never seen him so proud. "Ralph likes it here."

Alice attacked him with a grin and a hug around his waist; Ralph patted her head, a smile brightening his damaged face.

After she'd released Ralph, Alice turned hopeful eyes to Connor - and noticed that he, too, had cracked a smile ... but when he realized it was now _his_ turn, Connor seemed troubled. "Are you _sure,_ Alice? I'm certain we could find another way -"

Ralph interrupted with a quick shove to Connor's back, forcing him closer to Alice. "Don't be stupid. Alice doesn't _hate_ you." Though Ralph's voice was scathing, there was no malice.

Connor shot him an uncertain glare, then stared down at Alice; she stood smiling with her stick at her side. She stretched out a hand, fingers splayed. Her eyes held his with steady certainty.

With a little reluctance, Connor gently closed his hand around Alice's wrist; the skin shimmered away.

The first thing Connor recognized was _trust_. A profound, grounded feeling poured into him. Alice _trusted_ him far more than he knew possible. And then he, too, felt her radiant love that embraced the name _Kara._ His programming scrambled to accommodate this new possibility - a shift in his understanding of what it meant to be _alive_.

There was so much more to this little girl than she'd ever let anyone perceive.

Alice squeezed his wrist. "Don't be scared," she told him in a hushed voice - and he knew she'd felt the dark apprehension that thrummed with every heartbeat. "Whatever's wrong, we'll fight it together."

Connor smiled for her, reassuring - but Alice wasn't smiling anymore. Her worry quivered in the back of his head. He couldn't let it continue. "I have something I think you'd like, Alice." He tilted his head, and he caught her curious eyes with his.

Alice felt the rush and whirr of new data flooding and weaving in her code … but nothing else happened. Connor stepped away. Alice watched her skin shimmer back into place, and she stared up at him in confusion.

"Go ahead and scan me," Connor instructed her, trying to keep the smile from his face.

Alice did as he asked - and she squeaked in surprise. "You're only nine months old?"

Ralph burst into a fit of riotous laughter (Connor squinted at him, not so amused) while Alice stared in awe at her surroundings. The world was brand new - an oyster of limitless knowledge and wonder. She wanted to scan _everything._ She picked up a small smooth stone and held it up triumphantly. "This is basalt stone! … And that's a white spruce sapling! … And my stick is from a sugar maple tree that was _struck_ by _lightning!"_

While Alice hopped along the shore, identifying every little rock and shell with fascinated enthusiasm, Ralph's laughter quieted to a giggle. He jabbed an elbow repeatedly at Connor's arm. "What did you do? What can she see?"

"I uploaded a datalinked analysis function to her scanner." Connor looked at him sidelong, calculating his interest. "Do _you_ want to try it?" He extended a stiff hand, his eyebrows raised.

Ralph stared at Connor's hand - a peace offering. He shifted, uncomfortable. His smile disappeared. He looked away, and his voice was a muttered defiance. "Ralph doesn't want you in his head."

Connor withdrew his hand … but his own small smile remained. At least this time he wasn't just a _robot._

* * *

It was time to go, and Ralph tightened the straps of a backpack on his exposed shoulders. They had packed unnecessary clothing - shoes and jackets, shirts and belts - in sealed plastic and stuffed them in the bag, to carry dry to the other side. "Why is _Ralph_ carrying your trash?" Ralph griped at Connor, who gave him a passive and honest look.

"I'll take the bag," Connor offered. "Hand it over."

 _"No!"_ Ralph shifted the weight on his back to prove he was more than capable. He tried glaring at Connor - but Ralph's face only looked ridiculous covered in so many layers of sticky waterproof tape. He'd made very sure none of the river water would seep into his open wounds. "Ralph's most _important_ possessions are in this bag! Ralph can't risk losing them!"

Alice curled her toes in the pebbles while she secured the stick to her back, tying several knots over her camisole. She stared out at the brown water while she tightened the rope. "I scanned the water and it has lots of chemicals I don't know." She stared up at Ralph's tape-plastered face in worry.

"It's okay!" Ralph grinned brightly. "It's okay, it's okay! Ralph did it before. Just keep your throat closed, don't let anything in. And keep touching the bar the whole time - you can't see at all under the water. Nothing at all."

Alice looked for Connor, for even a shred of reasonable reassurance - but Connor had already waded in waist-deep. The water rippled around him. "I found the pipe," he announced without turning around.

Ralph's face twitched. "Yes, that's where Ralph _said_ it was." He tapped behind Alice's shoulder, encouraging her forward. "You next, go on next! Ralph will follow just behind."

Alice sloshed reluctantly into the water, testing the triple-knots one more time. She watched while Connor disappeared under the surface, knowing he wouldn't come back up.

She kept her head above the lapping waves as long as she possibly could - until she stood on her tiptoes, the bar gripped in one hand, her face tilted back for a last glimpse of the sky.

She took one more breath, and submerged.


	13. Drink Me

Cold, heavy water enclosed them in darkness. It rumbled low in their ears. Pressed the air from their lungs. Flooded their eyes. Drowned them in blind, weightless gloom. Strange shapes moved in the void of brown and gray. Distant noises echoed; distorted, they sounded like thunder, a haunting drumbeat, the low growl of a terrible beast they couldn't see.

Connor went first. His bare feet sank in muck and trapping weeds, but his posture never faltered. His fingers slicked on the rotting pipe, syruped with scum and algae. He couldn't see his own hands, couldn't determine the way to the surface. Everything, in all directions, was empty, endless suffocation.

He gripped the pipe. He propelled himself forward with precision, each step sinking into the sludge. His eyes locked ahead, as if he could see the opposite shore through the gloom. His mission was clear.

 _[Connor where are you?]_

Alice's trembling voice scattered his resolve.

Connor turned in the water; a quiet gurgle of grimy bubbles hissed around him. _[I'm here. You're doing fine.]_

 _[It's too much.]_ Alice spoke in a desperate whisper. _[I want to breathe.]_

 _[Don't breathe.]_ Connor grasped the pipe, faced the way he'd come. _[I see you in my scan. Can you see me?]_

 _[... I see your light. You're far away.]_

 _[Come toward me.]_ Connor spoke gently. _[It's all right.]_

Long slimy weeds grasped and knotted around Alice's ankles. She tore at them with her fingers, one hand clutching the slippery pipe. She leaped and pushed herself along through the buoyant water. The stick floated behind her, threatening to choke her by the harness she'd made.

 _[Alice are you here?]_ Ralph's searching hand brushed against Alice's back. She reached behind, clenched her hand around two fingers, held onto him like an anchor. His palm found hers, and he gripped tightly.

 _[Stay with me.]_ Alice's hand grasped his like a vice.

 _[Okay.]_ He moved ahead at her pace, slow through the reaching weeds. _[Okay.]_

Something roared in the distance, muffled and strange - the motor of a boat, churning high overhead … or the hungry snarl of a monster.

 _[Connor I can't see you,]_ whispered Alice.

Dark things flickered in the murk. A fish flashed its tail and disappeared in the deep.

 _[Connor?]_

Alice scanned a dim, distorted shape that blocked the way ahead. _RK800 Connor,_ analysis confirmed. His beacon blue light was gone.

 _[Connor, say something.]_

The shape began to drift away from the pipe. The current had captured it, shifted it gently, silently downstream - like refuse, like something dark and quiescent floating through the cloudy water.

 _[Connor where are you going? Come back!]_

Alice's fingers slipped from the pipe. She clawed at the water and leaped toward the shape in the gloom - but Ralph gripped tight.

 _[That's not the way!]_ Ralph tried to reel her back.

 _[Something's wrong!]_ Alice pulled at his hand. _[That shadow ahead, it's moving away - it's Connor. He stopped talking, he's not answering. He's gonna get lost!]_

 _[He got lost before in the woods, and he was just fine! Didn't need our help at all! Ralph is positive -]_

 _[Ralph!]_

 _[Well what do you think it is?]_ Ralph's voice chattered quick and loud, anxiety mounting. _[There are no monsters here! It's perfectly safe! Perfectly safe! Nothing happens, nothing happened -]_

 _[Ralph I can't see him anymore!]_ Alice had begun to panic. She yanked at his arm. _[He's not saying anything! Ralph!]_

The water pressed heavy all around them, brown and gray. There was no sound save the same distant, drowned echoes.

Nothing.

 _[Ralph let go!]_ Alice cried, struggling against his grip. She would go to Connor. She would _help_ him.

Ralph squeezed his eyes shut. He shuddered; he bit down on the instinct to rush for shore.

Alice's terror resonated in his head.

He thought of Connor, silent in the impenetrable murk.

 _[Stay here.]_ Ralph's voice was quiet. He pulled her hand over to the pipe, and he firmly pressed her palm upon it. _[Ralph will bring him back. Ralph will be back in a jiffy, so don't move.]_

Alice, reluctant, gripped the pipe with both hands. _[Be careful.]_

Ralph dragged his feet out of the muck, perched upon the pipe, and kicked off into the dim open water. He swam only for a moment before his weight brought him down again - but now he could see the shape in the distance. It writhed and billowed, like a big clump of weeds swaying in the flow of the river; a tiny, momentary flicker of red light caught his eye.

Ralph leaped forward; he flung his arms through the water, bounding in slow-motion after the retreating outline of a shape he wasn't positive was even the right one.

It was moving too fast.

Ralph gritted his teeth, and with a _heave_ he propelled himself forward, paddling only for a second before he sank again. Every moment he left Alice farther behind - and he was no longer sure he would be able to find her again.

 _[Ralph, are you okay?]_

 _[I see it.]_ Ralph pushed through the water, slipping in the weeds. _[I see it. Don't worry.]_

He wasn't fast enough. The shadow slipped away, enveloped by the gloom. Ralph's efforts slowed.

There was little else he could do now. It was far too late, too risky. Best turn back -

 _th-thwoom_

A sound reverberated softly in the water: a heartbeat pulsed out of the dark retreating shape … monstrous and foreboding.

 _th-thwoom_

Alice's voice screeched like razors in Ralph's head: _[The monster's HERE! Ralph! It's coming! It's happening! Ralph where are you?! I hear it! Ralph!]_

Ralph swam farther, propelled toward the sound - and then he saw it, floating in the murk: a deep, swollen mass of oily darkness, seething and undulating and flickering and _pulsing_ in the grimy water.

Connor, without a doubt, was inside it. Devoured. Plunged, asphyxiated, in an inky, inescapable darkness. A promise of a long and horrific death.

Ralph froze.

He knew exactly what it was like. He knew the choking, toxic terror of that nightmare - knew what it was to struggle _knowing_ there was no way out. No light. No air. No sound.

Just dark. Just death.

Even _Connor_ didn't deserve that.

Connor wasn't allowed to die. Not like this, not now, not so silent and effortless. Not by the thing that terrified and infuriated Ralph more than anything ever could.

The monster couldn't win.

Connor couldn't die.

 _th-thwoom_

The mass of shifting black tar receded again, quick downstream. It was getting away. Ralph thrust himself through the water, grasping and kicking, _determined_ to reach it, to find Connor inside that horrible monstrosity, to stop the horror that was happening to him, to ensure he made it _alive_ to shore.

He called upon Alice's unrelenting hope - that loving confidence that compelled her to find Kara, that convinced her she would succeed, that had woven itself into Ralph's programming.

A shimmer of light glistened along his outstretched arm: thin, holographic tendrils of glittering green wove delicate over his skin.

Ralph strained forward. It was so far away - but he reached, stretching his hand toward the receding shape in the gray-brown dark.

The shimmering green threads reached out into the water - long curling filaments grew past his palm like something organic, stretching further and further toward the pulsing shadow. Ralph saw them, glinting, so faint they barely existed … but he _felt_ them, too, as real as his own fingers. Each of the delicate threads snaked and lengthened under his control - as if they'd always been there, had always been a part of him.

He could make it.

 _th-thwoom_

With every ounce of anger and terror and _hope_ \- while the putrid water pressed close, gurgled in his ears - Ralph _reached_ toward the seething mass of monstrous black.

Threads of glittering green darted through the gloom like a spray of bright bullets. They twisted at the last moment, sprang and lassoed around and around the dark shape, trapping it in starry shimmers of holographic light.

 _th-thwoom_

The horrific mass pulsed; water rippled like a shockwave. The shimmering tendrils circled the darkness, tightened around it, _squeezed_.

 _Come on_. Ralph grit his teeth. He pulled with all his might. He felt the tension of the shadow strain against the green-shining threads, like a balloon about to pop. _Come on._

The black thing rippled and bulged, wrung tighter and tighter; it seethed with freakish dark colors, blinked a dead eye, gnashed sudden white teeth -

 _th-THWOOM_

The shadow was suddenly gone; its final shockwave flung Ralph toppling backward.

The green tendrils slackened and faded, shimmered into nothingness. Connor, freed and whole, sank gently into the weeds.

Ralph, upon reaching him, hooked an arm around his chest and dragged him back through the murk and muck.

* * *

Thirty minutes passed before Alice broke the surface, dragged a breath of air into her gasping lungs. Together with Ralph, they sloshed and splashed and rushed up the pebbled shore, dragging Connor heavy between them.

"Hide, hide, we have to hide him," Ralph stuttered a gurgling whisper while they rushed, dripping, for the trees. He glanced back over the open water, watching for boats, for the coast guard that might spot them.

 _"Connor!"_ Alice knelt beside him, hidden behind a copse of dense trees, and laid gentle hands on his arm. "Ralph what's _wrong?"_

"I don't know." Ralph dropped the backpack with a wet squelch. He tilted Connor's head between his damaged hands, flicked the boot switch off and on again, checked his throat, laid a palm on his chest to feel for vibrations. He grasped Connor's wrist, the skin peeling back; Ralph's eyes twitched while the diagnosis processed. He didn't recognize _any_ of the results. "I don't know, I don't know."

Alice fought back the tears. She dragged a trembling hand through Connor's wet hair. "Connor, come on! Wake up!"

Ralph clawed at the tape on his own face, snarled while he ripped it off in one sticky clump, so he could have both eyes to see. He laid his hands on Connor again - and paused as a last resort occurred to him.

He dug past the skin of Connor's abdomen, grabbed and twisted and yanked out the pump regulator in a thick squelch of black, oily blood; Alice recoiled, her eyes wide. Connor's body convulsed, his face contorted in pain.

Ralph, terrified of the dark ooze that dripped from Connor's biocomponent, shook it out and examined it for damage before he jammed it back into the bleeding hole in Connor's stomach.

Connor wheezed, shocked into consciousness; he sucked air into his lungs. He felt Alice's arms clasp an embrace around his neck, her face pressed against his head with a relieved sob.

He opened his eyes - and he saw Ralph staring back at him with a thousand unspoken questions.


	14. Roar

The afternoon sun waned low over the trees and siphoned through the branches; the little bee buzzed and blinked happily ahead.

Ralph followed silently, his footsteps quiet on the fallen leaves. All around them, birds warbled and insects chirred. A flock of geese fumbled along the muddy shore behind them. A gentle breeze soothed through the leaves, drying the river from their faces.

Ralph stepped lightly over a fallen tree, careful to move slowly for the others behind him. The soggy backpack drooped from his shoulders, containing now only his tarp and Connor's jacket; they had seemed too heavy, too constrictive to put on, now that there was room to breathe.

He looked back, where Connor and Alice hiked in silence, hand-in-hand. Connor hadn't said a word since they'd dragged him out of the water - at least, he hadn't said anything aloud. He only had that distant, troubled look on his face, like the end of the world was upon them.

Maybe it was.

Alice stared up at Connor - and even when she spoke to him in silence, he would only smile just a little: a twitch of reassurance that wasn't at all reassuring. She kept a grip on his hand.

"Hey … hey, robot." Ralph turned to face them, walking backwards through the leaves, his voice quiet and on the edge of uncertainty. He waited until Connor looked up at him with that same blank expression. Ralph chattered nervously. "Ralph might have considered he might've been hasty to turn down your offer - the scanner upgrade you gave Alice, that you offered to Ralph too, that Ralph turned down quickly." There was a glimmer of hope in Ralph's eye - perhaps by changing the subject, ignoring the black blood and the traumatic events of the river, they could establish some grounds for communication. "Is it too late for Ralph to accept?"

Connor stared at him, unreadable, while he walked softly over the forest debris. "... No. … No, the offer still stands."

Ralph stopped; he was surprised Connor had answered him at all. He waited for them to catch up with him, to stand with him in the clearing. He still wasn't keen on letting Connor in his head, and he let it show in the suspicious but acquiescent narrowing of his eyes - but he secretly coveted the upgrade that Alice had, and he wanted Connor to stop being silent. He extended a ruined hand.

Connor searched Ralph's face - though he wasn't sure what he was looking for.

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Ralph's wrist; their skin shimmered back. Connor's eyes moved behind closed eyelids.

Ralph felt his code rearranging and rewriting itself - and he felt Connor's thoughts alongside his own, as the sync established connection.

Connor frowned a little. The jumble of thoughts that invaded his head matched the chaos he knew Ralph to embody. Echoing in Connor's head was a deep fear of betrayal paired with a sharp longing for friends; anger, still raw and boiling, at a few of Connor's scathing comments that still burrowed in Ralph's looped memory; terror of the monsters and of the black thing in the water; an honest, clear desire to _help_ in any way he could.

Then, an overpowering _wave_ of emotion made Connor open his eyes and take a step back; Ralph still clung tight to his wrist.

Ralph was doubled over, shaking with something between sobs and laughter.

"You _like_ Ralph!" he announced through a high chuckle. "You're scared that Ralph doesn't like you!" This struck him as hilarious, but it was a wave of relief that crashed between them. "Ralph _doesn't_ like you," Ralph confirmed - and he looked into Connor's shocked face with a crooked grin. "Ralph doesn't like you at all - but Ralph will give you a chance. Yes, Ralph … he … I will." With a strange smile, Ralph shook Connor's arm. "I will, I will."

Connor hadn't said anything at all - but Ralph laughed as if Connor had told a joke, and immediately returned to following the bee through the woods, muttering excitedly to himself about friends and chances and apologies.

Connor stared after him blankly - and a look down at Alice only confirmed that she, too, was giggling.

He didn't get it at all.

* * *

Soon the forest opened up to bright chopped grass, cultivated flowers and paved paths. The android trio dodged joggers and dogs and running children until they found the statue of Elijah Kamski where they'd agreed to meet Hank.

Hank wasn't there yet, so Connor sat at the base of the statue while Alice ran on the playground with the other children, swinging on monkey bars and clambering on wooden forts. Ralph stood in the grass, swinging and stretching his arms like some kind of strange yoga routine, deep in concentrated focus. This, combined with the horror of his half-melted face, caused wary passersby to give him a wide clearance.

"They came out like _this!"_ Ralph shouted for Connor's attention, and he made a grand gesture to indicate threads coming out of his palm. "They were green and they sparkled with little lights. Ralph _attacked_ the shadow-monster and _killed_ it!" He squealed with delight and hopped an excited dance. "Ralph killed it with his _superpower!_ Like the sword that Alice has! Ralph can do it too! Ralph can _prove_ it, Ralph can do it again …!"

Ralph stretched out his arm, grasped his wrist and clenched his teeth in concentration - but the green tendrils didn't appear. "Maybe if you act like you're scared, Ralph can rescue you again, and then you'll see! Pretend you're terrified! Terrified!"

Connor only watched, his back straight, a slightly confused look on his face. "I don't think that will help," he pointed out. "Alice's anomaly has only surfaced in real circumstances of great need. I can only assume what you describe is the same."

Ralph wasn't listening. He was only focused on the fact that he could do something Connor _couldn't_ do. He resumed muttering to himself, contorting his limbs, stretching and leaping and frightening joggers, trying to get the green threads to come back.

The booming, snarling rumble of the _Knights of the Black Death_ echoed long before Hank's car screeched recklessly into the parking lot. The wheel bumped over the curb beside Kamski's statue; the car ground to a stop.

Connor passively approached while the engine cut and the music stopped; a silent ringing hung in the air.

Sumo bellowed a long, mournful howl.

Connor stopped when he was only close enough to scan the interior of the car. There were four empty beer bottles and a handful of pigeon feathers on the passenger seat. He couldn't see Hank's face … but Hank had another half-empty whiskey bottle tucked under his arm while he reached across to the glove compartment.

"Hank …"

The car door slammed. Sumo howled again.

Connor's LED flickered yellow. "Hank, what -"

He was suddenly looking down the barrel of a gun.

Someone screamed. Another shout sent the joggers sprinting in the opposite direction. Mothers scooped up their children; the swings swayed empty.

Ralph stood back, only silently watching the scene. Alice hurried automatically to his side; her hand slipped into in his, and she gripped it tight.

Connor stared calmly into Hank's face. He'd been here before.

"Tell me what you know about my _son."_ Hank's voice was deadly, ground through his teeth like venom. When Connor opened his mouth, Hank reaffirmed his aim. "Not the accident bullshit. Tell me what you've been _hiding._ Tell me what that … _android_ … did to my boy."

Connor watched while Hank's face contorted somewhere between grief and madness. "Hank…"

 _"TELL ME!"_ Hank's finger tightened on the trigger.

The whole park had gone still and silent; even the birds held their breath.

 _[Do you want Ralph to jump him?]_

Connor glanced over, where Ralph sheltered Alice behind him. _[No. Stay there.]_ He squared his stance, and he stood tall to accept whatever fate Hank decided.

"All right." Connor spoke slowly and gently, his eyes steady on Hank's glare. "I'll tell you everything. Just put the gun down -"

 _"Don't_ use your _fucking_ negotiator program on _me!"_ Hank bellowed. He dragged a breath through his teeth, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. He steadied his weapon with both hands. "Just answer the _fucking_ -"

"They took his heart."

Hank went silent … and very still.

Connor had shoved his hand in his pocket, gripped his coin in a shaking fist. "Hank, I'm sorry -"

"Why?"

"Hank -"

 _"WHY?!"_

The way Hank looked at him in this moment was a far worse nightmare than the beat of black blood in his veins.

Connor breathed in. "They used his heart in a ritual. It was mummified and placed in an old tree, surrounded by an intricate maze inscribed with the same mantra -"

"- RA9." Hank's voice growled, shaking. "To summon. RA9. My boy. Was used as a _fucking sacrifice_ to a _fucking made-up god of the ANDROIDS!_ A _fucking -!"_ Hank held his head; the tears finally streamed down his face - in anger. In horror. "It's fucked up. This is … this is _fucked up."_

Connor clenched his jaw. A part of him wanted to spare Hank from the whole horrible truth - but secrets would only eventually destroy him. "His heart is beating again."

"Not you, too, don't you _fuck_ with me -"

"I ingested that black blood from the tree." Connor raised his voice over Hank's disbelief. "It integrated itself with my thirium pump - and that heart in the tree started beating in time with my own. It's _synched_ with me, Hank. As long as _my_ heart is beating -"

"You're _fucking crazy!"_ Hank snarled. "All of it! This … this magic and rituals … It's _insane!"_ He bared his teeth. "This is some ugly, fucked-up trick to get in my head, _isn't_ it, Connor?"

"No. Hank -"

 _"I knew it."_ The words scraped out of Hank's throat, trembling like his finger on the trigger. "No more of your _mind games!_ You just _manipulate_ people! That's what you _do_ , right? You'll be _whatever I need you to be,_ right? It's all a _fucking_ show! Let's see how far we can _fuck_ with the old guy's head!"

Connor's balance wavered like he'd taken a blow to the gut. "Hank, I -"

 _"NO MORE TALKING!"_ Hank's finger squeezed on the trigger -

\- and suddenly the gun lay in the grass at Connor's feet.

Hank gurgled a choked sob and dropped with a heavy, unconscious _thud_ to the ground. His throat and wrists shimmered, wrapped in thin winding tendrils of green light.

Ralph - the other ends of the threads clutched in his fingers - stared at Hank's unmoving body, contorted in the grass. "Ralph didn't mean to kill him," he stammered immediately.

Connor couldn't move. His body screamed. Hank had been about to shoot. _Hank_ had been prepared to …

"He's not dead," Connor said, his voice shaking. "He's very drunk." After a moment, he tore his eyes away from Hank's tear-streaked face and found Ralph watching him uneasily. "Thank you, Ralph."

"You owe Ralph twice now." Ralph twitched the smallest smile - but even he was disturbed by what he'd just witnessed. "What should we do? We should leave - we'll leave him here."

"No." Connor watched as the green threads faded away from Hank's wrists. "We're taking him home." He looked up, panic flashing when he didn't see Alice - but then he spotted her inside Hank's car, her arms wrapped tightly around Sumo, her face buried in his fur.

* * *

Twilight hung dim over the quiet Detroit streets. Alice watched out the passenger window as the lights slipped by: a convenience store, a laundromat, a hotel with a staticked sign. The streetlights flickered on overhead as they waited, signal clicking, at a traffic stop. A few boys shuffled along the crosswalk in front of them, nudging each other and laughing.

The light changed. Connor pushed the gas and turned the wheel, drove down a smaller street, past a school and a row of scarred houses.

It was as if the world were just going on as it always did. As if it didn't know what terrible things were about to happen.

"Can you make the city evacuate again?" she asked absently, her eyes still staring at the passing fences and barred windows.

Connor took the next turn and drove slowly, watching for cats and children. "Even if I agreed with you," he began carefully, "I no longer have access to a warehouse full of androids. If we wanted to march in the thousands, we'd have to convince each one to help us."

"Mm." Alice hummed acknowledgment; she hadn't believed much in the idea, either. "Do you think Kara is at Mister Hank's house?"

"I believe she went there, yes."

"But is she _still_ there?"

"I don't know." Connor felt her eyes on him. "If she's not, I'm confident we'll find evidence there that'll lead us to where she went."

He glanced across the bench; Alice was watching him with a face that could only mean she thought he was lying to her to make her feel better.

Even Alice's hope was dwindling now.

"Alice." Connor looked over again, his eyes firm. "My _mission_ is to find Kara, Luther and Rose, and _ensure_ you all get back to the farm safely." His grip tightened on the wheel. "I _always_ accomplish my mission."

Alice was quiet for awhile longer.

In the backseat - propped against the door - Hank murmured something unintelligible, scowling in his sleep. Ralph kept his carving knife ready, curled in the middle between Hank and Sumo.

Connor knew Alice was staring at him again.

"Is what you said true?" she whispered softly. "About Hank's son's heart?"

The car crawled to a halt at a stop sign. Connor stared into the intersection. "Yes."

Alice stared out the window again. Her eyes glistened.

Sumo whimpered and stood up on the seat, beating Ralph with his tail as he smeared his nose on the window.

They were nearly home.


	15. No Place Like

Updated: 10/13/18

* * *

Hank's street looked nicer than the roads they'd taken to get there - all mowed grass and painted siding and new trash bins lined up on the curbs - but nothing moved. Somewhere a dog barked. Highway noise drifted from the distance. Compared to the constant buzz and chirp and squawk of the farm and the Canadian wilderness, this neighborhood felt unsettlingly quiet.

The car pulled into Hank's driveway. Alice examined the bleak outside of the house while Connor set the parking brake and removed the keys with a quiet jangle. The windows were dark.

After a moment of silence, Alice raised her eyes to Connor. She already knew what he was going to say. She curled a hand around her stick. "I'm going with you." Her eyes didn't waver. "If there are monsters in there, you need me. If Kara's there, she won't trust you."

Connor studied her resolve with passive consideration. He nodded agreement. He twisted to look back at Hank - contorted in the corner of the backseat - then to Ralph. "Watch him until we clear the area," Connor instructed him in a quiet voice. "We won't be long."

Ralph scowled at him. He wasn't at all happy about babysitting the murderous human, but he understood it was necessary. "Fine. Ralph will make sure the human stays."

 _"Alive,_ Ralph."

"This is just for threatening!" Ralph protested, waving the knife. Connor twitched a small smirk. While Sumo whined, high-pitched, Connor got out of the car.

Connor stopped at the edge of the driveway, a hand held out to stop Alice while he surveyed the yard. "Stay behind me."

She gripped the stick in both hands, aware of every slight movement in the shadows. She squinted at the darkened windows of the house, the odd shapes in the flowerbeds, but there was nothing to see but dim reflections and ragged twigs.

She followed up the stone steps toward the front door, and turned around to check across the street - in case any monsters might have thought to ambush them from behind - when she was suddenly pushed against the house with a hand on her shoulder; Connor pressed his back against the wall beside her. His eyes held steady on the splintered door frame, the broken wood, the loose knob. The front door had recently been forced open.

 _[Wait until I go in.]_ Connor instructed. _[I'll call you when it's clear.]_

Alice readied her weapon. _[Okay.]_

With an arm outstretched, Connor pushed open the door; rusted hinges creaked ominously. Inside were only silent shapes - darkness and shards of dim light through the blinds.

He waited a few beats; he listened for any sign of movement inside … then slipped silently into the house.

Alice adjusted her grip on the stick; already, the splintered bark had begun to glitter with gold sparks of light, ready to leap into action at the mere mention of monsters. She listened hard to the silence inside the house, determined to burst in the moment she heard _anything_ suspicious. A clock ticked faintly inside.

 _tick … tick … tick … tick … tick …_

 _[It's clear.]_ Alice startled, and the stick went dull once more.

A light flicked on in the living room, illuminating soft chairs and wood shelves, and the creepy house seemed a little bit warmer. Alice shuffled into the doorway, suspicious - and she made one more careful scan of the kitchen and living room to be _sure_ Connor hadn't missed any monsters.

Connor stared around him, troubled. "Whoever was here didn't _take_ anything."

"It might've been Luther that broke the door," Alice suggested hopefully. She stepped quietly into the house, staring around her at a part of Mister Hank's life that seemed very personal. She flicked on the kitchen light, revealing the bits of trash on the table and the ancient cups in the sink.

"That's a very possible theory," Connor agreed. His greater concern was the reason the coordinates led back here - nothing was _different_. What were they supposed to find? Were the coordinates in the barn only meant for Kara?

He watched Alice a moment, while she skiffed her feet along the kitchen linoleum, staring at mugs and appliances but keeping her hands to herself. "Hank won't mind if you make yourself at home," Connor encouraged her, hoping she'd at least let go of the stick.

A skitter and a _thunk_ of fur against the doorframe announced Sumo's arrival; Ralph had let him out after Connor's all-clear. Sumo wagged joyously, snuffled a bit around the entryway - possibly noting traces of someone other than Hank - then immediately plopped down next to his food dish in full expectation of service.

A shout rang outside: "Ralph is losing his grip on the drunk human! If he falls and breaks his head, it isn't Ralph's fault, it wasn't on purpose!"

Alice leaned her stick against the fridge while Connor went outside to rescue Hank - and she noticed something moving and flashing on the counter. She curled her fingers over the edge of the counter, stared wide-eyed at the pretty orange-and-blue fish that sparked and flitted back and forth in the water. She reached out, pressed her finger to the glass - the fish was drawn to it, followed her finger while it moved. She laughed quietly.

Alice filled Sumo's water dish at the sink - and while the big dog slurped and gulped and splashed all over the floor, she found his kibble and gave him a scoop of that as well. She giggled while he attacked the food bowl with vigor. "Chew before you swallow, Sumo!"

Connor and Ralph with Hank dragging between them, struggled and bumped and squeezed through the door. "Here, in the chair." Connor led the way into the living room - and Hank was unceremoniously dumped into an unused armchair with its back to the television.

Ralph flung the damp backpack into a corner of the room. "Kara isn't _here_ , is she?" he griped, while Connor knelt to remove Hank's shoes. Ralph stared at him like he was committing sacrilege. "What are you doing?" Ralph flickered a sneer. "He just almost _killed_ you."

"He's not likely to remember that when he wakes up," Connor spoke in an even tone.

Ralph glared at him. His face twitched. "Human-loving … _robot_ ," he hissed under his breath, while he stalked away to the kitchen. He found Alice alone under the kitchen light, sitting at the table with a photograph between her hands. "C'mon, Alice." Ralph grinned suddenly and scooted into a chair across the table from her. "Let's go find Kara _together!_ She's not here but she must be _somewhere_ \- we'll leave these two to their mess, they're not our problem, not at all. We'll find Kara and we'll go back across the border and everyone will be safe and sound, safe and sound - what are you looking at?"

Alice rubbed a thumb over the photo. "Cole Anderson died in a car crash on October 11, 2035," she read off the analysis in her scan, "when a driverless hauler truck skidded on ice and collided with the sedan."

In the living room, Connor raised his head silently.

"He'd just turned six," Alice continued, her voice quiet. "The driver of the car was his father, Lieutenant Hank Anderson, who was treated for a concussion, three broken ribs and a collapsed lung." She looked over the edge of the picture and whispered: "Ralph, that was only three years ago. Mister Hank is still _hurting."_

"No, no! Broken ribs take less time than _that_ to heal!"

"No, Ralph -"

Connor called out from the next room. "Cole didn't die in the crash," he corrected gently. "He died on the operating table, when an android surgeon removed his heart." Ralph and Alice looked up as Connor strode steadily toward them - poised and determined. "RA9, Cole, Kara, the monsters, the coordinates, and _you_ , Alice -" he took a seat swiftly, "- it's all connected. You _know_ it is. If we find answers to one, we'll solve the other." He looked pointedly at Ralph. "We shouldn't split up."

"What do we _do,_ then?" Ralph snapped. "You said there would be evidence, what evidence? This looks like a dead end - no coordinates, nothing. Nothing! Just a drunk human's house!"

"I think," Alice spoke up in a small voice. Her eyes rested on Cole's silent, smiling picture. "I think we should make sure Mister Hank is okay. I think we should stay here."

"It's possible the evidence we need will be clearer in the morning," Connor agreed.

"But what about _Kara?"_ Ralph insisted, alarmed that no one else was alarmed. "What about her? Where is she? Something might've happened! She could be _anywhere!_ The _monsters_ could've got her! What if we could _save_ her but only if we go now, tonight, this minute!" His eyes flickered between Alice and Connor. "We're the only ones with _superpowers,_ we're the only ones who could _rescue_ her!" Ralph's fingers scraped, fidgeting, on the table.

"She's okay." Alice was confident of this. Her eyes held steady on Ralph's face, and she smiled a little. "If something was wrong, I would know. I think Kara's somewhere safe. Luther, too."

Ralph's mouth twitched. "Are you a Lucy?"

Alice giggled softly. She lifted her eyes shyly to Connor. "Um … can I take a bath?" Her voice dropped to a whisper: "I feel like the river's _sticking_ to me."

"Down the hall to the right."

After Alice had slipped away and the bathroom door clicked shut, Ralph collapsed over the table in frustration. He pattered his fingers on the surface, murmuring to himself while his face contorted involuntarily. He swiped his carving knife out of his belt and pressed the point of it against the varnish -

Connor plucked the knife out of Ralph's grasp and took a quick step back. "I'm not sure Hank would appreciate finding the RA9 symbols in his own kitchen," he said smartly, while Ralph groped the air after the knife. "I understand they're compulsive and unintended." Connor watched while Ralph only hunched with his elbows on the table, fists clasping, hissing a low twitching mumble. Connor surveyed him a moment. His eyes narrowed. "When was the last time you went into stasis?"

"Stasis? No!" Ralph snapped; his broken LED skittered yellow. "Ralph must remain vigilant! Danger could happen at any moment! Visitors! Trespassers! Monsters! Anything could _happen!_ Ralph can't sleep. Ralph _won't_ sleep."

Connor was quiet a moment; he initiated a silent conversation with Alice across the wall - knowing that Ralph would never agree to Connor's suggestion, but _Alice_ could fairly easily change Ralph's mind. He received a positive response, and he smiled a little. "Okay," he said to Ralph, his hands raised in surrender, still holding the knife. "Okay. So instead of redecorating, you could spend the night looking for evidence. Have you tried the advanced scanning features yet?"

"Evidence?" Ralph sat up straighter with interest. "Evidence, evidence, I could scan for evidence…" He was already glancing quickly around the kitchen, energized by the possibility of being the one to find the clue that would lead them to Kara. Then he could _save_ Kara, and both Kara and Alice would be grateful and happy because _Ralph_ did a good thing.

Connor watched him just long enough to confirm that Ralph wouldn't _completely_ destroy everything in his crusade - then he laid the knife on the table again, trusting that Ralph wouldn't use it against the furniture. He returned to the living room, and to Hank, who had begun to drool.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Ah … _god_ what is … oh … uuuhhhggghh …" Sunlight streamed through the window and glared directly in Hank's face. He squinted, raised his arms blearily; his head spun, like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff.

His stomach lurched.

"Ssssshhhhhhit." Hank had to make it to the bathroom before yesterday's mistakes ended up on the living room carpet. He rocked himself out of the chair, clung to it to keep his balance while his brain sloshed in his skull.

He rubbed his fingers on the fabric. He didn't remember getting home.

He wasn't alone, either. Hank's couch was currently occupied: Ralph was sprawled in the corner of the couch - propped against a huge stuffed dog he'd found - with his eyes closed, strangely still and peaceful, while Alice slept against him. Alice's hair had been let down, crinkled and draped around her shoulders. She looked strange that way. Older. Hank stared at the pair dizzily - then his stomach propelled him hobbling to the bathroom.

* * *

The door creaked open; a square of sunlight brightened the shaded house. "Hank!" Connor called after a moment's scan, having noticed the empty armchair. He held up a rolled paper bag. "I brought bagels!"

The retching noises stopped with a sharp spit. "Good fer you," came a raw slur from the bathroom.

Connor felt a keen sense that he should tread carefully with Hank - the cut of those accusations still burned … and Connor had no conclusive evidence against them. He laid the bag on the kitchen table.

"Did you find out where Alice's mom is?" Hank called, rasping.

"No. Your front door had been broken into - but nothing was out of place or missing." Connor stared over at the couch; even Ralph's furious mission for clues had turned up nothing but evidence of a mouse problem.

"Huh." The toilet flushed, and Hank glared at himself in the mirror while he brushed his teeth. He spat - and he hovered a moment over the sink, watching the bubbles swirl down the drain. "Did you check the back room?" he called.

"... What back room?"

Hank hissed a sigh and muttered a lilt of sarcasm. "What back room … for the love of …"

Once he felt nominally better, Hank trudged barefoot across the hall into his bedroom, where he dug in the back of the closet for a little wooden box he'd stashed there years ago. His fingers brushed against polished wood. His heart ached.

Inside the box was a thin key - and with the key in-hand Hank made his way steadily to the door at the end of the hall.

Connor was already at the corner behind him, LED blinking curiously. "I … don't remember seeing that door before." In fact, Connor's memory was fuzzy about that particular area of Hank's house. Had there been a door there all along?

"Now you're _really_ as stupid as you look," Hank muttered, and he jammed the key in the lock - but he stopped a moment. With a long breath of resolve, he turned the knob and shoved open the door.

The door opened to a narrow room, dimmed by thick curtains pulled tight against the windows. The carpet was bright blue, scattered with small kicked-off shoes; the walls were bursting with shelves of stuffed animals and model cars and plastic dragons and comic book heroes. A little desk was pushed against the window, with a coloring book open to a half-finished page.

Hank jumped in shock when he saw her sitting on the bed, poised and delicate in a pristine white dress - but once his heart rate had come down a little, he sighed heavily and leaned a weary arm against the doorframe. "How long've you been in here?" he groaned.

"Two days, sixteen hours and seven minutes," answered Chloe with a precise and gentle smile.


	16. White Rabbit

Updated: 8/18/18

* * *

"Two days and….?" Hank forced a breath through his nose, scraped his face with a rough palm. His head was already pounding and spinning; he wondered how much of it was really just the alcohol. "Christ." He sucked in a steadying breath. "Lemme guess." His eyes rested steady on Chloe's bright face. _"Kamski_ sent you."

A beautiful smile turned the corners of Chloe's lips. Her answer was immediate. "Yes, of course!"

 _Kamski._ Hank had known, even six months ago, that Kamski was behind far, far more than he'd ever offered to tell. Deviancy as a _virus,_ built-in back doors, secret androids with classified specifications that end up leading revolutions. To Hank, the Deviant case didn't end with the androids' freedom. Here, sitting in his absent son's room, was proof that _everything_ \- Cole, red ice, RA9, Deviants, Markus, Kara, _Connor_ \- had been orchestrated by a mind that was both sadistic and mad.

"Why did Kamski send you to my house?" Hank folded his arms. He steadied himself, controlled the hot rage at this invasion of the most private, most sacred part of his life. He'd become used to shutting down, switching off, when he was on the case. "How the hell did you even get in here?"

"I came in through the window," Chloe laughed. "I hope I arranged things in the way they were before. It was hard to tell from the outside." She scooted a little forward on the bed, leaning on her hands, engaging Hank in delightful conversation. "I'm here to destroy this room," she told him cheerfully. "The house, preferably, but this room at least."

"Destroy …?" Hank's control slipped, his eyes wider. Only then did he notice the two square gallons of gasoline stacked neatly beside the desk. "...fuck."

"I would have burned it sooner," she explained, "but the little boy asked me to wait three days." She gave a playful shrug. "My instructions didn't specify a timeframe, so I agreed!"

The little boy.

Something deep and sharp crushed his chest - that feeling he'd tried for three years to drown in whiskey. A possibility that he'd never, _never_ allowed himself to dwell on.

This wasn't the first time he'd entertained the thought that Cole was _here._ Present in this room, in this house, despite his own skepticism. One night, weeks after the accident, Hank had been in this room when he thought he'd heard Cole's voice, whispering from the corner. It had been the same night he'd locked the door and hidden the key.

He refused to believe in ghosts - but on the off-chance he was _wrong,_ he'd ensured Cole's spirit had a familiar place to stay.

Chloe's eyes widened. "Oh. Do you live here?" She laid a light hand over her heart. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea."

"Kamski knew." Hank's voice was quiet. Unreadable. He watched her carefully - but she didn't have any tells.

Chloe's light flickered blue. She gave Hank a sweet smile. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

Hank smiled just a little - like the cat that had captured the mouse. "Did Kamski _tell_ you not to talk about his motives?"

The blue light flickered again. Chloe bubbled a quiet laugh. "What Elijah told me isn't important." She shook her head a little. "I'm happy I know now that this house is occupied. I will leave the rest of the house intact."

"Uh huh." Hank regarded Chloe with a knowing eye. "Connor, get in here."

Connor appeared in the doorway; his eyes swept the room, his jaw slackened in shock.

"Hello!" Chloe greeted him happily. She interlocked her fingers over a knee, and she smiled warmly to see him notice her. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Connor."

"... Likewise." Connor had been distracted by the gasoline - but also by the coloring book, the shoes, the stuffed animals on the wall, waiting for Cole to come home. This room was a time capsule; a preservation of a moment when Hank's life had been ... _happy._ He cast a questioning look to Hank - even now, out of habit, he waited for instruction - and he saw in Hank's face something powerful but subdued ... despair, guilt, anger ... mostly anger.

Hank made a small gesture toward their uninvited guest. "Chloe here says what _Elijah_ told her isn't important." He waited for Connor to catch up to his conclusion.

Connor's eyebrows rose. "Ah."

 _"Ah_ is right." Hank agreed.

Chloe watched them in perfect, glittering interest. "What are you two talking about?" she laughed.

Connor approached with a faint but disarming smile. He offered Chloe his outstretched hand. "May I?"

Chloe tilted her head. Her smile widened serenely. "Of course!" She lifted a delicate hand and placed it in his porcelain grasp.

Connor clasped her wrist. He watched while her eyelids began to flicker; her posture wavered from its ballet-precision. "Wake up," he whispered.

Chloe opened her eyes. She glanced around the room - and she raised uncertain eyes to Connor. He let go. "How do you feel?" he asked carefully.

"I …" Chloe was startled to find she didn't know what to say. She searched the floor for the right words. She shifted slowly to her feet - and wavered as if she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to stand.

"What did Kamski tell you?" Connor insisted gently, determined to maintain her focus.

Chloe stared at him as if she were uncertain of even who she was. She took a sharp breath as if she might speak ... but struggled with her thoughts. "Elijah ..." Her eyes cast down to the carpet at Connor's feet. "He's been obsessive." She laughed a little, bleakly. "More than usual."

Hank stepped forward, turning to move past Connor's shoulder. "Obsessive over _what?"_

Chloe bit her lip - but the expected wall of forbidden action never came. She was free. "RA9," she tried - and when there was no consequence, she looked up to Hank. "He caused the communications blackout," she blurted. "He said it would stall for time, but he didn't say why. He's convinced that there will be an attack on Detroit that will wipe out the city, and it has something to do with RA9."

"What about my _house?"_ Hank reminded her - though he wasn't unaffected by her words. _An attack on Detroit._ Those things in the forest - the pack of whispering, devouring shadows - they were _coming._

"Elijah found the coordinates through an android he'd captured." Chloe spilled everything she'd kept locked for months, hidden behind walls of code. "He said the coordinates led to _ground zero."_ She pressed her lips together. "I don't know if he realized it was your house. I'm sorry."

Hank stared around the room once more - at the Superman figure Cole had broken more than once, that Hank had repaired ... at the shoes that lit up, that Cole had loved so much he'd worn them around the house ... at the skateboard Cole would stand on while Sumo pulled him down the sidewalk.

 _Ground zero._

"I need to think." He pushed past Connor again, out of the room toward the kitchen.

Connor stared after him, uneasy - and caught the coin he hadn't realized he'd been turning on his knuckles. His eyes rested on the half-finished page of the coloring book ... uncertain whether to ask a question he knew needed to be answered. "You said a little boy told you to wait three days."

Chloe smiled - this time soft, almost pained. "The little boy who lives here."

"Cole." Connor stared at her a moment longer, to be certain she had said exactly what she meant. "You've talked to _Cole?"_

"Is that his name?" Chloe shook her head a little. "We had many little conversations. He showed me his coloring, and his favorite superheroes." She looked up with a sad smile at the crammed shelves, the toys worn and well-loved.

"Did he _say_ anything?" Connor insisted. Speaking to dead humans should be impossible - but so should Alice's conversations with Jerry. Connor was no longer willing to dismiss any possibility ... especially when Cole's heartbeat thrummed in his own chest. "Did he mention anything important? About RA9 or … the Queen of Hearts?"

Chloe shook her head haltingly - distracted. "He said he loved his dad." Her eyes widened by degrees. The realization crept into her new consciousness like a shadow under the door. "He asked me …" Tears pricked her eyes. "He asked me to tell his dad that he loves him." She covered her mouth with a hand - but withdrew it to ask the question she knew the answer to. "He's dead, isn't he?" Her voice was a shuddering whisper. She looked up to Connor quickly. "Cole is dead."

Connor set his mouth in a grim line; his LED glimmered yellow while he chose his words - but a small presence in the doorway interrupted him.

"Did you see Kara?" Alice stood barefoot in the doorway, draped in a patchwork blanket, staring with wide and uncertain hope at Chloe. Her fingers hugged the blanket tightly, her tangled hair trapped beneath it.

Chloe brushed the tears from her eyes. She approached, one soft step at a time. She knelt on the carpet, sat on her heels, offered a comforting smile though she trembled ever so slightly. "I'm sorry, sweetie." She glanced up at Connor. "I didn't see anyone, but I was here when someone broke the front door. Two people, a man and a woman, searched the house, calling for Alice." She noticed a tense reaction, and Chloe leaned gently forward. "Is that you? Are you Alice?"

Alice nodded vigorously; she gripped the folds of the blanket. "What else did they say?" she asked quickly, breathlessly. "Do you know where they went?"

Chloe laid a delicate hand on Alice's shoulder. "The woman said, _'We should find Markus. He'll help us.'_ Then they left."

Alice's face brightened; a sparkle returned to her eyes, and a long-absent smile slowly grew. "Really? They went to see Markus?"

Ralph's voice snapped from the hallway, loud and suspicious. _"Who_ went to see Markus?!"

Alice bounded to the doorway with a new bubbling energy. She caught herself on the door frame, the blanket forgotten on the floor, bouncing on her feet. _"Kara!_ Kara and Luther were here! They went to find Markus! Ralph, we know where they went!"

"Well let's _go!"_ Ralph shouted, flinging his arms in the air. "Let's go, let's go, come on, come on!"

Alice bolted into the hallway - then she skidded, turned around, and raced back hastily. She stumbled and grabbed Chloe's hand in both of hers, her face open and honest and brimming with relieved, joyful tears. "Thank you, um …"

"Chloe." Chloe gave her a warm and genuine smile.

Alice grinned and whispered, "Thank you, Miss Chloe." Without further hesitation, she darted back down the hall, tripping past Ralph on the way.

* * *

"Mister Hank!" Alice breezed into the kitchen, Ralph close at her heels - and she skidded to a stop.

The air felt wrong. Tense. Dangerous. Like a taut thread about to snap.

Hank had put on his shoes, though he still wore his clothes from yesterday. He stood by the door, his head bowed, breathing loudly, shoving bullets in his gun with a soft _click …. click …. click_. His ragged gray hair hid his face … but there was a grim determination in his posture that gave Alice a cold feeling.

Ralph balled his fists and puffed his chest. "Human!" he barked, ready to _demand_ that Hank drive Alice to where Markus was - but Alice's voice was quick in his head.

 _[No! Ralph, don't say anything.]_ Ralph squinted down at her, but he locked his mouth shut.

Hank shoved the gun into the back of his belt, and he shrugged on his weathered jacket. "I'm sorry, Alice." Hank twitched a small, forced smile - trying to put on a lighter tone for Alice - while he felt the world burning and black. "We'll go find Kara when I get back - but right now there's this guy who might have real answers about my ..." He set his jaw, but struggled through the choked word with a gesture of his head. "My _son."_

He'd suspected six months ago that Kamski was hiding something huge, but if Kamski had known even then about Cole - if he had looked Hank in the face with that smarmy smile while _knowing_ \- then Hank had every intention of getting every scrap of information out of him ... and he wouldn't be playing any of Kamski's games to do it.

He looked up only when Chloe's white dress - contrasted against the gray broken house - approached in the corner of his eye.

"You're going to find Elijah," Chloe guessed carefully. Hank's silence confirmed the truth. He was all rigid angles and deep shadows. "He's not at the house." She lifted her head a little. "He's underground - you won't find him alone."

Hank hissed a sarcastic chuckle. "So, what, you offering to lead me right to him? Is that how much you _hate_ that asshole?"

Chloe poised still, her head held high. There was only a steady assurance in her eyes. "I know Elijah very well - he's not always what he appears to be -" She paused. Her light blinked blue. "But I have ... _questions."_

Hank nodded to himself. He studied Chloe's face with a shattered kind of smiling desperation … a buried scream for help. "You and me both."

Alice found her stick still propped against the fridge. She wrapped her fingers around it, lifted it up, stared at the broken bark as if it might hold a secret that might finally make everything okay. Her grip tightened. She looked up to Hank. "The monsters will get us - and Kara, and Luther - if we don't stop what's happening," she whispered, just loud enough to be heard. She strapped the stick to her back like a sword. "Don't go alone. Kara will wait for me. We're going with you."

* * *

"Do you know the way to the Historical Museum?" asked Chloe. The car rumbled along the busy rush-hour streets of downtown Detroit, surrounded by beetle-like taxis and swerving bicyclists; the sidewalks were heavy with people carrying shopping bags or briefcases or clinking cups. The air here was dense with smells and noise. They stopped for a traffic signal, a swarm of people in the blinking crosswalk.

"I know where it is," Hank answered, distracted. He glanced over at Chloe in the passenger seat; she was staring at him, troubled, her blue LED flashing.

Ralph, Alice and Connor had all squeezed together in the backseat. Ralph fidgeted with his knife, the blade turning and flashing - the same way Connor's coin flickered back and forth across his knuckles. Alice sat between them in silence, her fingers gripped on the molting bark of her stick, while Ralph's voice skittered in her head.

 _[Ralph thinks we should leave them at the museum. We'll get a cab ourselves, go find Kara. We don't need them, we don't need them at all.]_

 _[I'm not leaving Mister Hank - and Mister Kamski might know how to save everyone! We have to try!]_

 _[Kamski isn't the kind of person who'll be forthcoming with answers. He's likely to ask us for something in return.]_

 _[Something? Something? What kind of something? He made androids! There's nothing he could want, nothing at all!]_

 _[The last time I met him, he wouldn't answer my question unless I put a bullet in Chloe's head.]_

* * *

"We're here."

Chloe led the way through the doors of the Historical Museum, into the entrance hall thronged with tourists and children and loud echoing voices. Connor hacked the metal detector and they slipped through security - past old cars displayed like polished artwork, bright murals of freedom marches and factories, glass enclosures with rusted relics inside. Alice slowed to stare at a display of Native Americans living among the wilderness, their woven baskets and leather clothes - and the fanged dead wolves, stuffed and glass-eyed and haunting.

They scattered and converged again, wove through the crowds, kept their heads down. Connor's expression had turned fierce, while Ralph hunched as he walked. Hank moved stiffly, a tight smile on his face while he nodded at passersby who might wonder why he was wearing a jacket in the middle of June. Nothing was wrong. Nothing to see.

Chloe ducked into a dark hall, and she held open the freight elevator doors until they were all inside. She stared up at the floor indicator; with a yellow flicker at her temple, her eyes fractured and glowed.

The elevator pinged. All the buttons lit up. It jostled, banged … and descended.

The floor indicator beeped: 1 …. B …. SB …. ▓

Alice slipped a hand into Connor's palm - the other clung to Ralph's grip. She saw the flash of Hank's gun, and Chloe's sideways glance.

She held her breath.


	17. Garden Door

The elevator shuddered. Rattled. Squeaked.

Stopped.

The floor indicator had frozen on flickering static.

Everything paused.

Silent. Poised between somewhere and nowhere.

Chloe stood very still, hands folded before her, eyes straight ahead.

Hank checked his gun once more.

Alice squeezed Connor's and Ralph's hands.

At once, they squeezed back.

* * *

The doors clicked … then slowly scraped open. Beyond them was a wide, empty, blinding white room - featureless and clean. Nothing but white walls, white floor - stark fluorescent lights.

Chloe stepped forward. Her heels clicked on the polished floor. At the opposite wall, she turned delicately to face them. She held Hank's eyes with her own. "Please wait here."

There was a plea in her face that didn't register in her voice.

Hank tensed immediately. _She was about to betray them._

"So, what, you're gonna _warn_ him?" Hank strode forward - then broke into a run as Chloe pressed her hand against a panel on the wall. A narrow door opened to admit her, and it slipped shut just as Hank reached it.

He slammed his palms against the seamless wall that had swallowed their only guide. _"Dammit!"_

She knew that Hank was coming after Kamski with a loaded gun.

Connor glanced down at Alice, and she released him from her grip.

"I've got it, Hank."

Hank stepped aside - and Connor noticed a stiff distance between them as he approached. Hank had said nothing, hadn't changed his expression or his posture - but Connor felt the air go still in his lungs. His hand hovered a moment.

His skin peeled back, and he laid his palm against the panel. His eyes twitched with the effort; the security was far more complicated than he'd anticipated.

The elevator doors had slid shut behind Ralph and Alice. They heard the shudder and rumble of the elevator going back up, back to the museum high above.

Leaving them behind.

* * *

"Got it." Connor stepped back while Chloe's door slipped open.

Beyond it was only more brilliant white.

Hank huffed a low breath - and with quick, decisive steps he led the way down the sharply lit hallway. As he walked, his soft steps echoing, he closed his gun in his grip.

Connor looked back at Alice, and at Ralph. Alice saw worry on his face before he followed Hank in silence.

"Ralph …?"

"Sshh, sshh, we'll be fine." Ralph's grip was like a vice in her hand. "We'll be fine. We have superpowers." He flashed a small, twitching grin, and he smiled down at Alice. "We're superheroes! Nothing bad will happen. Nothing at all. Come, come on."

* * *

Hank had reached the end of the hall.

He turned left, and stared down the shining white corridor.

He turned right, and saw only another bright hallway.

"Okay, which way did she go?"

Connor stood at the crossroad, his LED blinking blue. He scanned left … he scanned right. "I think it's this way," he said, still facing the hall to the right.

"You _think?"_ Hank set his jaw. _"Why_ do you think?"

Connor stared back at him. Hank's state of mind was only held together now by a few fragile threads of determination. He had to be careful. Delicate. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "I have a feeling."

Hank hissed a breath through his teeth. His hand tightened on the gun. He paced a few struggling steps - then finally raised his head. "Alice, go with him."

Alice's mouth slackened. She glanced up at Ralph in alarm.

Hank gestured with a firm hand. "Ralph, you're with me."

Connor stepped forward. "Hank -"

"Ralph isn't leaving Alice!" Ralph shrieked, his teeth bared, fists trembling. "You plan to _get rid_ of Ralph! If Ralph goes with you it's the end, you'll put a bullet in his head, all you ever wanted to do -"

Suddenly Hank's fist was in his collar. Ralph's back hit the wall.

"I am _sick_ of your voice," Hank hissed venom. He felt Alice tugging urgently at his jacket. His grip quivered. He could only think of the sight of his gun, pointed between Connor's eyes. "Everything's not about _you,_ asshole."

"Ralph didn't mean it, please don't hurt Ralph!" Ralph's face twisted in terror and alarm, quaking in Hank's grip.

Hank realized in that moment what he was doing. He released a breath - and he released Ralph. "Just come on." His voice was low. He held Ralph's eyes with his own determined glare. "I spent a hell of a lot of time and energy _saving_ your ass, I'm not gonna hurt you now."

 _[He doesn't want Alice to witness what he plans to do to Kamski,]_ Connor's voice spoke in Ralph's head. _[He doesn't want her near him. You'll be safe.]_

Ralph stared across at Connor, uncertain.

Hank's eyes narrowed. He looked between them, then at Ralph's sputtering yellow LED.

"I need _backup,_ Ralph." Hank's jaw was rigid. "Can I _trust_ you to watch my back?"

Ralph's eyes twitched. "No, not really." He glanced at Connor, then back to Hank. "But Ralph will go." _[If anything happens to Alice, Ralph will tear out your insides and stomp them to pieces.]_

Connor nodded. _[Understood.]_

Hank headed toward the left hallway. "Come on. And quit _whispering_ behind my back."

Ralph and Alice exchanged looks. Ralph saw the trepidation in her face. He grinned reassurance. "Ralph can handle the human," he insisted.

"C'mon!" Hank called. His voice echoed hollow in the white corridor.

* * *

Alice stepped quietly forward, her hand in Connor's, and she watched them go. She saw Ralph glance back at her - and she smiled a little, until they turned a corner and were gone.

Connor squeezed her hand. He turned his back on Hank and Ralph. "Let's go."

* * *

Hank led the way down the bright white corridor, his gun dangling in his fingers. It quickly became clear that there were no doors in this hallway - at least, none that he could see. There were only turns, left or right, always sharp. It'd be a maze if there were any other choice where to go. Everything was vacant. Everything echoed.

He wondered just how long this winding corridor would go on - and if they were being watched.

Ralph followed him at a small distance, eyes alternately downcast and glaring hateful daggers at the back of Hank's head.

"You got somethin' to say," Hank spoke wearily without looking back, "just say it, Ralph."

"You hate Ralph's voice then you ask him to speak. Make up your mind."

* * *

They strode on in silence. The walls didn't change. They took another turn.

* * *

"... Why did you shoot?"

That wasn't the kind of question Hank had expected.

He didn't react. He didn't respond.

Ralph puffed his chest and skittered a little closer, daring. "Why did you almost pull the trigger? You would have -"

 _"I know_ what I would've done." Hank didn't look at him. Didn't take his eyes away from the endless hall ahead.

"Ralph doesn't like the robot either, but Ralph wouldn't attack unless he was being threatened, and -"

"Ralph."

 _"No!"_ Ralph whirled in front of him, his cape swinging. Hank was surprised to see that he was _angry._ "You listen," Ralph hissed. "Ralph and the robot interfaced, we're _synched,_ Ralph _knows_ when he lies, and -"

"Ralph, thank you."

Ralph stumbled like he'd been struck in the face. "What? … What?"

Hank set him with steady eyes. His voice had taken on a tone that Ralph hadn't heard before - something sincere. "Thanks for stopping me."

Ralph stood very still, his damaged eyes wide in shock, while Hank continued around the next bright corner.

"I shot because it was easier." Hank glanced back to see Ralph was following again, quiet and far more docile. "Easier to assume my best friend had been betraying me all along … than to accept that what he was telling me was true."

If Hank had actually done it - had silenced Connor and thus the truth about Cole - he knew he wouldn't have lived through the night, himself.

He shifted his grip on the gun.

"... Friend?" Ralph's mouth twitched. "Humans and androids can't be _friends."_

"Well." Hank stopped, and he looked up at a huge pair of very heavy, very old, very dark wooden doors, carved intricately with sweeping reliefs of twisted demons and taut chains and screaming, burning souls. "We'll see."

* * *

"I saw it in a dream."

Alice walked alongside Connor while she released her stick from its makeshift harness. They hadn't seen anything for awhile - just corners and white walls and bright lights in the ceiling - but she wanted to be prepared.

Her voice was hushed. "The shadow-monsters were attacking people in the street."

"In Detroit," Connor clarified. His eyes were on the endless bright hallway ahead.

"Yeah. Only, the sky was all red, and the buildings were falling down. There was a lot of screaming. Markus was there, he was trying to fight them but it didn't work."

In the silence that followed, Connor looked down to find that the solemn pressure in the back of his head was Alice trying not to cry.

He lifted a hand. Alice took it timidly. Connor's confidence - his confidence _in her_ \- seeped into her heart.

"You saw Kara and Luther," Connor guessed quietly.

Alice nodded. The squeeze of her hand was all he needed to know they hadn't fared well. "Then what happened?"

"A great big monster stood up. It was bigger than the biggest skyscraper." Her voice was an awed breath - shaking, ever so slightly. "It was horrible. It had a long neck, and _wings_ that made the whole city dark, and it was so dark I couldn't see anything at all. And it made noise, like a pulsing sound, that was a shockwave and it made the buildings fall."

She walked on beside him in silence before she ventured to tell him the scariest part.

"... I heard the noise again. The big monster's sound. It was in the river."

She felt a shift in Connor's thoughts - somehow sad, somehow empty.

He'd gone quiet.

"... Connor?"

"The sound." Connor watched the gleaming floor ahead of them. A small, accepting smile pulled at his mouth. "The pulse in the river … was Cole's heartbeat."

Alice stopped.

Connor walked on a couple paces before Alice's hand slipped from his. He turned back, eyes questioning.

Alice fidgeted - but her eyes were steady on his. "Cole's heartbeat is in you, isn't it."

Connor nodded silently.

Alice squeezed the stick in her hands. "... Can I hear it?"

For a moment they only stood together in the empty white hall, fluorescent lights glaring down - but then Connor smiled quietly. He lowered himself to his knees.

Alice laid the stick on the floor. She approached him, draped a hand over his shoulder, and pressed her ear to his chest.

 _th-thwoom_

"I hear it," she whispered. Her breath was a loud shudder. "It's the same."

 _th-thwoom_

"It's the same as the monster." Alice pulled back, gripped his shoulders, stared at him with teary eyes. _"Connor!"_

"It's all right." Connor maintained his smile for her. He brushed away her tears. "Your dream is only a _prediction_ \- what will happen in the future is still uncertain. Right now I'm _fine."_ He ducked his head a little, eyebrows raised, looking for her eyes so she would see how serious he was. "I don't intend to become a gigantic shockwave-monster anytime soon."

Alice choked a laugh. Connor stood, and she took his hand and picked up her stick.

"Besides," Connor pointed out, his voice echoing in the empty hall, "we're here to find Kamski. He created the first androids. If _anyone_ can fix me, it's him."

Alice squeezed his hand while they rounded the next corner - then Connor stopped. She looked up at his face - his LED flickered, eyes scanning rapidly - and then, following his gaze, she stared up at the huge doors that towered before them: heavy and wooden, carved with intricate reliefs of clouds and fountains and beautiful gardens and angels with wide feathered wings.

Connor let go of her hand. His expression turned grim. Calculated. "Get behind me."

Alice complied, her stick held ready for whatever might come through that door.

* * *

Hank checked his gun one more time, and he approached the door. "Get behind me."

Ralph shuffled back, his knife poised gleaming, eyes trained on the heavy wood.

* * *

Connor and Hank each pressed their hands against the doors … and pushed.


	18. The Wizard

The doors of hell opened with a quiet hush of air, into a dim and silent room.

Inside, like specimens on the walls - illuminated from behind by cold fluorescent panels - hung a dozen hollow husks of androids in varying and horrific states of disassembly. Long worktables created aisles across the dark floor; their countertops glowed the same chilling light as the specimen walls. Arranged meticulously on the worktables - like a museum display - were bodiless plastic faces with hollow eyes; white shining hands with reaching fingers; thirium pumps in glass cases; networks of meticulous blue veins suspended by rods of unfeeling metal.

The only color in the room was a huge blue painting against the back wall: a face, looking over a shoulder, its desperate eyes left unfinished.

"Shut the door behind you."

Elijah Kamski sat hunched over one of the worktables, where he had been dissecting an android-shaped mass of wires and plastic. Its thirium pump pulsed with a dim blue glow.

Hank stepped slowly into the room. He raised his gun with a straight and confident aim. "You sent an android to burn down my house," he informed Kamski in a deceptively calm tone.

Kamski paused in his work. A smile slithered into his face. He didn't look up. "Collateral damage, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?"

Ralph, meanwhile, had taken one look inside the morgue and skittered back, his LED fizzling bright red. He stood in the white hallway, staring through the opening in the doors at Hank's back, the gun, the man at the table with his back turned. His clenched and unclenched his fingers around the hilt of his knife, breathing through his teeth, bouncing nervously on his feet.

"You can look at me, for starters." Hank looked down the sight of his gun with a stiff smile, while Kamski slowly swiveled to face him. Kamski looked very different with glasses, jeans and a t-shirt, like he was just some techie from San Francisco - but the pasty face and the all-knowing smile gave him away.

Hank's eyes narrowed. "Now. You can tell me why you sent an android to burn down my house." He emphasized the word with a tip of his head. It was a simple question. An easy question - especially with a gun pointed at Kamski's head.

Kamski smiled as if Hank were a child asking why the sky was blue. Cute. He rose to his feet, and he began to walk, one silent step at a time, across the room. Hank's weapon tracked him. "Do you believe in the concept of an eternal soul, Lieutenant?" Kamski asked amiably.

"I'm not here to play your games, Kamski!" Hank had dropped the pleasantries; his voice hissed low.

Kamski paused to stare up at a half-assembled face that hung like a trophy on the wall. "No games. The answer to that question is the answer to everything." He touched his fingers against the cheek of the disembodied head … then finally faced Hank, only to be distracted by the open doors - and beyond them, something interesting.

"Why don't you join us?" Kamski beckoned to Ralph with a lazy gesture.

Hank kept his eyes on Kamski. "Ralph, stay behind me."

"Ralph." Kamski's eyebrows rose a little, and he watched Ralph slip shakily into the room, his back to the wall, knife gleaming, to stand jittering behind Hank. Ralph's face twitched with a flickering alternation of terror and rage. "What happened to you, Ralph?" Kamski's voice feigned concern.

"Kamski, I'm the one you're talking to," Hank growled.

"Ralph was attacked," Ralph chattered through quick breaths. "They did horrible things to Ralph." His eyes flickered. He gestured with his knife to the corpse on the table. "You did horrible things to that android."

"I'm rebuilding that android." Kamski approached slowly, as if Hank didn't exist. He laid long fingers against his own heart. "That's what I do. I build - and I repair."

Hank was suddenly close in front of Kamski, the gun point-blank at his head. "Answer," Hank snarled, "the question."

Kamski looked up at Hank, held his eyes with a confident smile, waiting for Hank to calm down a little. "I'll answer all your questions -"

"No if!"

"If …" Kamski smirked, challenging - and his eyes shifted to Ralph, "Ralph agrees to an examination."

"Ralph don't say anything!"

"Examination?" Ralph shifted his grip on the knife. "You'll take Ralph apart." His LED flashed and skittered bright red; he cut the air with his knife.

Hank reinforced his aim. "No examinations! Just talking."

Kamski looked to Hank. He looked to the gun. He opened his mouth, and he took a patient breath. "Lieutenant, we both know you won't shoot me. In fact -"

He was cut off when Hank's fist connected with his cheekbone.

Kamski stumbled back, shocked, caught himself on a worktable and scattered a clatter of tools, holding the red mark on his face.

Hank grinned cockily. "You're right. I won't shoot you."

* * *

The doors of heaven opened with a quiet hush of air, into a room full of warm color and light.

Long, polished-wood worktables created aisles across the mahogany floor. They were heavy with old books, museum artifacts, tribal masks, ancient tablets. The walls were lined with bookshelves and cabinets that displayed the bones of small prehistoric animals, plastic replicas of fish and dragonflies, paintings full of sweeping colors and subtle form.

"How'd you get in here?"

Carl looked up from his notes; he sat at one of the worktables, where a spread of old texts were fanned out next to suspended bottles of thirium and electronic tablets. He took off his glasses while he stared in confusion at Connor.

Connor gave the room a quick scan. He addressed Carl pleasantly. "We're looking for Elijah Kamski. Have you seen him?"

Carl studied Connor's blank, mechanical face. "Is he expecting you?"

"No. We have a very important matter to discuss with him. It's urgent that we find him right away."

While Connor spoke, Carl wheeled himself slowly out of the aisle, closer to the door where he could get a better look.

Connor stared in mild surprise at Carl's handicap, blue flashing at his temple.

Carl squinted up at him. "You're that … deviant hunter the news went on about a few months back. Connor … right?" He noticed the immediate shift in Connor's expression.

"Yes," Connor answered stiffly. "But that's not who I am anymore."

Carl's eyebrows rose. "Then who are you?"

Alice, seeing no danger, crept quietly through the doors. She scanned the room just like Connor taught her - and then she shuffled forward, her curious eyes on Carl. The scan had told her that he couldn't hurt her … but it was his face, and his eyes, that told her she was safe.

She lowered her stick, and she slipped her hand into Connor's.

"Aahh." Carl smiled broadly to Alice - and he returned his eyes to Connor, bright and proud. "I see."

Connor and Alice exchanged a questioning look.

"My name is Carl." He wheeled a little closer and leaned forward, overjoyed to meet a child in such a lonely place. "I'm a painter."

Alice stared at him - but something about his face made her smile. "I'm Alice. I'm …" She paused. She couldn't quite think of anything that she was - only what she was not. "I have a magic stick!"

"A magic stick!" Carl's jaw slackened in awe. "Well you'll have to show me!"

"Carl." Connor sought Carl's attention, firm and pragmatic. "We need to see Elijah Kamski."

Carl tilted his head up at Connor. "This is about RA9, isn't it?"

"Yes." Connor narrowed his eyes, questioning. "Can you help us?"

"Well that depends on the question. How much do you know?"

Alice stepped eagerly forward. "RA9 is a big shadow-monster!" she blurted. "It's going to destroy the city! And there are lots of smaller monsters with teeth and scary eyes, they're going to hurt people! Lucy said I had to follow the white rabbit and see the Wizard and the Hatter, and I think Miss Chloe was the white rabbit, so are you the Wizard, Mister Carl?"

Carl had listened to all this with wide eyes, struggling to keep up. He chuckled softly. "Well. I'm no wizard, but I do know quite a bit about magic. C'mon, I've got something I'd like to show you. Connor, would you mind giving me a push? Over this way."

"Uh." Connor blinked. "Sure."

"Ah, thank you, Connor. Just over here." Carl gestured to a particular old book, and Connor wheeled him close. "Do either of you kids know what thirium is?" Carl began turning delicate pages in the old tome.

"Thirium is a natural substance found in underground deposits," said Connor, "the largest of which are beneath the Arctic Ocean. It is also a major component in the manufacture of androids."

"Nope."

Connor tilted his head. His LED flickered. "No?"

"No," Carl agreed - and he glanced over, grinning, while Alice noisily dragged a stool closer so she could see the big book. "Thirium is the stuff that gives life to the earth."

"That's what Jerry said!" Alice whispered.

"Well Jerry was right!" Carl replied confidentially. "Every drop of Thirium has the potential to develop into a conscious, sentient mind. All it needs is a little help."

He turned to a page filled with an old illustration: a stone statue, walking behind a smaller person that appeared to be leading it. Below the picture read the caption: Golem.

"Thirium's nothing new," Carl continued, turning the pages. "It's the World Tree, ley lines, the fountain of youth, the collective unconscious, magical intent, god. Whatever you call it, it's the stuff souls are made of."

Connor leaned over Carl's shoulder to stare at the next page: a hieroglyphic depiction of a powerful holy figure surrounded by eight smaller gods, all surrounding the symbols of a heart, a sword, and a shield.

"Ra was the god of the sun," Carl continued, "also equated with the first god, Atum. He and his eight children became the world as we know it. They are the Ennead - which translates to The Nine."

Alice's eyes widened. "RA9!"

"Now you're getting it!"

"How does this help us?" Connor hated being confused - but he'd studied the page and listened closely, and still was no nearer to saving himself or the city. "How do we stop what's happening?"

"RA9 is just a metaphor for the souls of the earth," Carl said grimly. "The last time that force was called up, the world was created. When it rises again, the world will be destroyed." Carl looked up into Connor's shocked face. He turned the page to reveal a drawing of an old gnarled tree with a beating heart.

"To call RA9, a beating heart must balance the veil between the living and the dead, to create a road that the dead can cross, to become more powerful in the world of the living. It needs a shield, to shelter it while it grows stronger - and a sword, to destroy all life as it is on earth. RA9 will absorb those dead souls, until everything is gone. Unless."

He turned the page.

The illustration depicted a sword, piercing through a shield, to strike a bleeding heart.


	19. 2027

Silence settled upon the room. Carl looked up to see Alice gripping her stick tight, and Connor poised and processing. "What is it?" asked Carl, confused.

"The sword," Alice whispered. "That's _me._ And the _heart_ is _Hank's son._ And -"

"I'm the shield." Connor stared at the picture, calculating all possible scenarios.

"I can't _do_ that." Alice's voice was a shudder. "I _won't."_

Connor raised his eyes to her face. He opened his mouth to speak - but Carl waved a hand to interrupt him.

"Hang on, now, just hang on, nobody's doing anything. Alice, what do you mean, you're the _sword?"_

"My stick turns into a sword," Alice explained. She held out the stick for him to take, and Carl examined it with interest. "But only sometimes, and just a little."

"It's a mutation in Alice's code," Connor offered passively, "that allows her to temporarily change the properties of foreign matter."

Carl raised his brows, running his fingers along the bark. "Well, that sounds _wonderful._ Do you think you could _show_ me, Alice?"

Alice accepted the stick back uncertainly. "It only happens when somebody's in danger. The sword shows up, and I can help them."

Carl hummed thoughtfully. "I doubt that." He smiled when Alice's questioning eyes raised to his. "Your _emotion_ triggers something inside you - but it's _there_ all the time, just waiting for you to discover it." He pointed a bony finger at Alice's heart. "That sword _belongs_ to you."

He glanced up at Connor with a smile, then swiveled his wheelchair out into the aisle. "Come on, let's give it a try." This time Alice jumped to grab the back of Carl's chair, and with an angled push she shoved him along to a wider space at the back of the room, where old Egyptian pottery sat alongside ancient Chinese dolls.

"Now, stand out here where you've got lots of space to swing around." Carl sat back in his wheelchair, his head tilted with a soft grin while Alice flung the stick in front of her to test her space. He chuckled. "Balance on your feet - not leaning forward, not leaning back - and hold that stick in both hands. Now close your eyes … and think of the people you want to protect."

Alice sucked in a breath and let it out. She screwed her eyes shut, and she gripped the stick in both hands.

"Relax," Carl's voice drifted around her. "Let that stick just barely balance in your hands. Let your arms go loose. Pretend your legs are jelly." Alice giggled lightly, but she tried to do as she was told. The stick drooped a little; her stance softened. Her breath deepened.

"Now," Carl said gently, "who do you want to protect?"

"Connor," Alice answered immediately, thinking of the image in the book. She took a slow breath. "Mister Carl." She smiled a little, and she peeked with one eye to see him smiling back. She closed her eyes again. "Ralph. Mister Hank. Sumo." Her fingers trembled a little around the stick. "Kara."

Connor pressed a silent hand on Carl's shoulder; Carl patted it in acknowledgment. He'd seen that shimmer, too. "Hold Kara in your mind, Alice. Let your heart open up. Do you feel that tingling feeling?"

Alice breathed slowly. Her mouth fluttered to a smile. She nodded.

"Now take that tingling love - with Kara, and everyone, still secure in your heart - and let it move down your arms … through your wrists … past your fingers … all the way, gently, as far as you can."

Alice thought of that last morning, waking from a nightmare to find Kara's soft voice and gentle touch, warm as the golden morning light, waiting to comfort her. Alice's heart ached and grew, and she thought of Ralph, and Connor, and Hank - and she imagined that her heart encompassed them, too, and protected them all from the dark. Forever.

After a few moments, Carl squeezed Connor's hand on his shoulder again. Connor remained very still, and he'd forgotten to breathe - his shocked eyes fixed on the sharp, shining golden sword.

* * *

Kamski chuckled low. He gingerly touched his cheek, surprised and amused at its tenderness. "I must say, Lieutenant," he said smoothly. "You do have an impressive right-hook." He smiled while he moved his tongue in his cheek, to be sure all his teeth were intact. He raised a passive hand, and Hank paused with his fist drawn halfway for another swing. "We're _on the same side,"_ Kamski insisted quietly. He met Hank's eyes with his own piercing gaze.

"A peace-offering, then. Something that may change your … _perspective."_

He sat up into a stool, and he gestured for Hank to sit, knowing the offer wouldn't be taken. "I'd like to tell you a story." His sharp eyes turned to Ralph, who jumped at the attention. "Do you like _stories,_ Ralph?"

Ralph's mouth twitched in a sneer. "Ralph doesn't trust anything you say."

Kamski grinned slowly. Maliciously. "I don't blame you. I've yet to _earn_ your trust. But I think that I will. One way or another." His stare slipped to Hank's snarling face, where it rested for a long moment before he breathed in and broke eye contact.

Chloe had appeared at the back of the room, where she stood poised and waiting.

"Before I founded CyberLife, I was a graduate student -"

"I didn't ask for your goddamn life story!" Hank growled.

Kamski stared at him once again. "I assure you, Lieutenant, my life story is extremely relevant to your current predicament. To answer your question without the _proper_ context would not come _close_ to conveying the information you're here to obtain. … You _are_ here for information, aren't you?" When Hank's only answer was a deadly glare, Kamski smiled again.

"I was a graduate student at Colbridge, under an AI professor named Amanda Stern." He noted the way Hank's eyes narrowed at the name. "She had a _brilliant_ mind, in not only technology but psychology, philosophy, and ancient histories." He paused a moment to remember her, to consider his words. "It was this interest in _history,_ not computers, that led her into a deep obsession with _thirium."_

He watched Hank's face for a reaction - and when he didn't get one he leaned back, disappointed. "You see … _I'd_ become her favorite." Another pause. He took a sharp breath. "She let me in on her experiments, which at first might have looked to you like _witchcraft_ \- symbols, chanting, mental exercises in belief and willpower - but the thirium _reacted,_ just as the texts on enchantment and golems said it would."

"Reacted how?" Hank, skeptical, leaned back against a worktable full of android appendages and folded his arms.

A smirk grew on Kamski's face. "It was _alive._ Of course, _my_ immediate and logical reaction was to _market_ it - to create machines that could act and react in ways that should have been impossible … I could create _life_ and _sell_ it to the highest bidder. I knew then that a fortunate future was ahead of me. But _Amanda_ \- she had bigger dreams."

He got up from his stool, and he stepped closer to Hank in order to pick up the empty mask of an android's porcelain face.

"Her ambition was to use thirium to evolve the _human race."_ He looked sidelong at Hank. "To end suffering on earth, to destroy hunger and death, by transforming us all into _god."_

 _"Gods?"_ Hank huffed a sarcastic chuckle. "Yeah, right."

"No, _god._ Singular. The collective unconscious, a concept popularly believed among philosophical circles to be both the ultimate evolution of humanity as well as the true definition of _god._ She believed thirium was the means by which it was possible to … _accelerate_ that evolution. Naturally we disagreed, and we parted ways."

"That's just great." Hank nodded, smiling stiffly. "But what does this have to do with burning my _goddamn house down?"_

"I'm getting to that, Lieutenant." Kamski smiled calmly. He pressed the plastic android face into Hank's hands, and he walked along the worktable, admiring its ghastly display while he continued.

"Fast-forward to 2027. CyberLife had become a multi-billion dollar company, androids had begun to change the world, and red ice made its first prominent appearance among the destitute and the damned." Kamski glanced back, pleased at the look on Hank's face.

It was Ralph that spoke up first with a shudder. "The Queen of Hearts and her Diamonds."

Kamski smiled. "Very good, Ralph. I realized early that red ice had originated with Amanda, but I chose to keep this information to myself, out of _respect._ So when she called me late one night, out of nowhere, and told me to meet her in the assembly room of CyberLife Tower - which she did _not_ have authority access to - I was overcome with … a sense of _dread."_

* * *

"Elijah found me half-drunk on the dance floor," Carl went on, telling his story to the two androids who listened, captivated, to every word. "He grabbed my arm - the party had deteriorated into a wreck by that point - but his _face…_ That was the first and only time I'd ever seen Elijah Kamski scared out of his head."

"What was he scared of?" Alice whispered. The sword had once again turned back to a stick, and she sat on the floor with it across her knees.

"He said someone broke into CyberLife and was _threatening_ him. He wanted me to go with him, help mediate the situation. Well, I thought he was pulling a _prank_ on me." He sighed and shook his head. "But I was a curious idiot, so we took my car."

* * *

"We arrived at the assembly room to find that it had been broken into." Kamski plucked an eyeball out of its display and turned it in his fingers like a plump berry. "Amanda was there. High as a kite on red ice, but just as lucid, just as fearsomely _intelligent_ as she always had been."

* * *

"There were wires and tubes _everywhere."_ Carl gestured chaos with both hands. "And there _she_ was, in the middle of the room, connected to all of them, like an octopus. She was hooked up to some kinda assembly contraption that definitely was never meant for humans."

* * *

"She said she would prove me wrong." Kamski stared into the mechanical eye with a placid smile.

* * *

"She said she would _transcend this earthly body."_ Carl set his mouth in a grim line. "Then she pulled a switch -"

* * *

"- and everything I had built descended into chaos," whispered Kamski.

* * *

Carl had gone quiet. His face was solemn, horrified, guilty; his jaw refused to recount the gruesome truth of what then happened to Amanda Stern. His thin hands clenched the arms of his wheelchair.

"Elijah tried to turn it off," he said, finally. "And I jumped at that horrible machine, tried to rip it off of her, get her out while she could still be saved." His eyes grew distant.

"There was an explosion. Everything collapsed. I didn't feel my spine snap - but I knew I wasn't walking out of there. The next thing I remember, the sprinklers were going off and Elijah was dragging me out the door."

* * *

"We lived, by some miracle," said Kamski, wistfully, "but Amanda did not." He paused, his eyes uplifted for dramatic effect… then breathed in sharply and resumed pacing the work table. "Or so I thought, until I began to receive messages from beyond the grave. Isn't it interesting how we as humans tend to simply _ignore_ that which we don't understand, or makes us uncomfortable? I, too, refused to acknowledge these messages, these warning signs, until it was far too late."

* * *

"She's not an AI!" Connor blurted his realization suddenly, interrupting Carl's story and making Alice jump. "Amanda Stern's _consciousness_ was uploaded into the CyberLife network!"

"I'm afraid it's worse than that," sighed Carl. "Amanda _is_ the CyberLife network."

* * *

Kamski chose a delicate, severed hand from the display and examined its palm. "She immediately commenced efforts to … _remove_ me from my position as CEO of CyberLife - correspondence sent in my name, orders and authorizations with my signature - it was too easy." He smiled a little, his eyebrows raised, and gave a small shake of his head. _C'est la vie._ "Predictably, the executives and company shareholders soon collectively agreed that I was no longer fit to lead the company. Before Amanda could _completely_ destroy my livelihood, I resigned quietly - and I built this underground facility where I could continue my research outside of her reach and knowledge."

* * *

"I didn't hear a thing." Carl waved his hand dismissively. "The last time I'd seen Elijah was in the ambulance - then _nothing_ for _year."_ He raised his brows and shook a knowing finger at Alice, who stared, captivated. "Then! My doorbell rings, and there's Markus."

"Markus?!" Alice squeaked.

"Yes!" Carl smiled broadly. "That was the first time I saw him. Sure, he was built _here_ \- in Elijah's secret crazy-dungeon, for whatever ulterior purpose, I'm still not sure I really understand - but Markus has grown to be my _son._ I _love_ him, and I'm _proud_ of him."

* * *

Kamski once again stood before Hank, his neck craned but his eyes no less formidable. "I've been fighting this war for a _decade,_ Lieutenant - but every time I get close to beheading RA9, I find that _she_ is three steps ahead."

Hank stared him down, formidable and unmoving.

Kamski released an annoyed breath. "Your son's soul," he conceded, "exists between life and death; he grows stronger as RA9 gains power. He is the bridge between nightmare and reality. His link to the living world must be severed, before something … _disastrous_ crosses that bridge."

Hank clenched his jaw. He shook with the desire to destroy every scrap of glass and plastic in that room. Watch it shatter. "You're telling me," he hissed, "he has to die … _again."_

Kamski studied his eyes. "For the future of this _world_ … that's what I'm saying, yes." He watched Hank struggle with this, and he stepped back. His eyes found Ralph, whose knife was still pointed at him.

"Ralph. You _are_ infected with Amanda's RA9 virus." He held Ralph's eyes with his own until Ralph sneered.

"Ralph doesn't know why he does it!" Ralph snapped. "Ralph isn't on her side, no, no, Ralph doesn't want to summon it, Ralph doesn't want anyone to get hurt -"

"I can make it _stop,_ Ralph." When Ralph's chatter paused in surprise, Kamski took a few slow steps forward. He waited until Ralph looked at him again. "You're the _only_ android I've met who is actively infected … yet _resists."_ He shook his head in wonder, his sleepless eyes narrowed.

"Ralph resists, yes." Ralph's jaw slackened a little. "Ralph fights it. But it always wins, eventually."

Kamski studied him. He drew in a breath. "If you will _trust_ me, I believe - with your _help_ \- I can cure this illness … and allow you to spread that cure to others. Do you understand the _implications_ of this?"

Ralph stared at Kamski's pale face. "Yes," he said quietly. "You want Ralph to stop others from summoning it. Take from her army. Add to ours."

Ralph looked down at Kamski's hand, outstretched to him. Waiting.

He glanced up at Hank, who peered back at him with a sort of angry uncertainty. No encouragement. No word against it. No judgment, whatever Ralph's decision.

With a flinch and a shudder, Ralph faced his creator … and took his hand.


	20. The Hatter

Updated: 10/14/18

* * *

"Are you really Markus' _dad?"_ Alice tilted forward, her eyes wide in awe at the man who had raised a hero.

Carl chuckled. "Yes! He comes around to visit now and then, always unannounced. He tells me what he's up to, and we laugh about politics and he rags on those friends of his, and I tell 'im to go on out there and do what feels right. The world needs the lessons he could teach. He just needs to believe in himself." He smiled warmly. "Just like you, Alice."

"Me?"

"You're capable of doing astounding things," Carl winked and tapped his temple. "All that's stopping you is just in your head. You're an amazing person, Alice." He leaned on his knees, bright and warm. "I know Kara knows that, too."

Alice grinned and ducked her head. She fidgeted with her stick for a distraction from the glowing attention. "Kara loves me," she whispered in earnest, her heart warm. "But sometimes …"

She stopped, uncertain whether she wanted to say it aloud - to stop pretending it didn't matter. She bit her lip. "She talks to me … but she doesn't expect me to answer." She stared at her stick, as if it held all the questions that were never asked. "The last day I saw her, I didn't say anything. Sometimes for days I don't talk at all, and nobody notices. They love me, I know they do, and I love them very much …"

She looked up into Carl's face, unsure of what it was she was really feeling, unsure whether she had a right to feel it. "But I don't think they really know who I am." Even Alice hadn't been sure of who she was, herself, until she'd been forced to speak for herself. The difference she felt inside her was unsettling. Overwhelming. She felt more free here in dangerous places, with strangers she'd barely met, than she ever had in the loving security of the farm.

Carl smiled with gentle understanding. "Well. You'll just have to tell them who you are, the very next time you see them. Right?" Alice stared up at him with guarded hope, and he chuckled. "Do you think they'll love you any less when they see you for who you really are?"

"No," Alice whispered, daring the truth. "They'll be happy, I think."

"Be the person that makes you happy, Alice." Carl sat a little straighter, his shoulders back proudly. "Love will only grow from that."

Alice nodded, and she hugged her stick with a soft and hopeful smile. She looked up. "What about Connor?"

Connor's LED trilled blue. He stood poised with one hand on the back of Carl's wheelchair; he had only been listening in silence.

"Yeah, what about Connor?" Carl agreed. He craned his neck to peer up at Connor, a curious grin on his face.

Connor looked from Carl to Alice and back again. He squinted, just a little. "What _about_ me?"

"Family, Connor." Carl reached up and tapped his arm playfully. "Who loves you?"

Connor stared into Carl's kind face, his own expression passive. He released a slow breath.

He took too long to answer.

The seconds ticked, and Carl's smile faded. "Well, who do you care about?"

"Everyone," Connor said immediately - steady and calm. "Androids, humans - they all deserve to live."

Carl shook his head gently. "On a personal level, Connor."

Connor set his jaw.

He knew the answer. It was difficult to say aloud.

* * *

Alice sat up straighter, an unwavering sincerity in her voice. "I care about you, Connor." She searched for his eyes, determined that he should understand. "So does Hank." She saw the flash of pain in his face - just a short flicker of light and a tiny wince, but for Connor it meant volumes. "He told me," she insisted. "He said he likes it when you're around."

"Connor." Carl grasped his wheels and turned slowly, forcing Connor to face him properly. "Who is Hank?"

With the loss of Carl's wheelchair to lean on, Connor - left groundless in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty - slipped a hand into his pocket and ran his thumb over the coin there. His posture straightened.

"Hank is the lieutenant I was placed with upon my assignment to the DPD," he explained in a crisp tone. This hadn't been the purpose of the question, he knew - but it was the answer he had ready.

"I see." Carl regarded him carefully; he studied Connor's face, but still had trouble gleaning whether this android truly regarded himself as alive. "You were forced to work together. How did that go?"

Connor broke eye contact. He found himself staring at a glass bottle of thirium on the worktable - a cool blue against the warm brown bindings and soft yellowed pages. "...It was difficult at first." He remembered - as clearly as he remembered everything - exactly what it had been like to step into the DPD for the first time and to be told he'd have to go bar-hopping to root out his new handler.

"I was the most advanced prototype CyberLife had ever developed - I had a flawless track record; my capabilities far exceeded what any team of humans could hope to accomplish. I was fully prepared to complete my mission alone, without interference - then CyberLife, using my success as proof of their good intention, assigned me to the police department … where I was shoved off on the one cop the rest of the force refused to work with."

Despite the harsh words - which at the time might have been spoken in malice - there was a small, but curiously amused smile in Connor's voice. Carl wasn't quite sure yet what to make of it. "You felt you'd been betrayed," he guessed. Connor nodded conclusively.

"At the time, I'd insisted I was incapable of feeling anything - that I would succeed despite my circumstances - but I think I hated Hank almost as much as he hated me."

Carl shook his head. Like Alice, it seemed, Connor had remained quiet for far too long. "So what changed?"

The answer wasn't immediately clear. Connor searched within himself for what he expected to be a single moment - an event he could point to as the first domino to fall - but it wasn't that at all. He looked down to Alice's upturned face … and he understood.

"He expected me to talk." Connor spoke in a breath, surprised at the simplicity of it. "He asked me questions I didn't have the answers to - about my motivation, free will, love, life and death. He expected me to understand …" He pressed his head to the side, eyes narrowed, as if pushing through his own thoughts. "And I tried to understand - I wanted to understand, without having wanted anything before. I wanted to understand _him."_

Carl's posture straightened, and he leaned so slightly forward, toward the way Connor's voice had become a little more nuanced, a little less mechanical. "And did you?"

Connor's eyes snapped to Carl's face. His light glittered blue. His weight shifted, and in discomfort he moved, found a chair, sat promptly and leaned on one knee. "Hank cares very much," he declared, solemn and certain, "about everything, though he doesn't always show it. He can be deeply affected by the suffering of others, almost as much as his own. He drowns these emotions in alcohol, and avoids additional suffering by keeping other people at a distance - through anger and sarcasm, primarily."

"Well, it sounds like you've already got your conclusion, then," Carl agreed.

Connor stared at him. He listened to the haunting thrum of Cole's heart. "He's in pain," he said quietly. "Much more than I'd ever thought possible. I tried to save him from it - I tried to keep from him something I knew would destroy him - but I only made it worse." He knew well that feeling of betrayal. He knew how far Hank would go to destroy the source of his suffering. A picture on the table. A gun with one bullet.

Connor pushed the breath from his lungs. His fists clenched. He shifted where he sat, unsettled no matter what he did. "I can't cause him any more pain." He sucked a breath through his teeth. "Hank would gladly give his life if it would help a complete stranger, but no one has been there for him." A new anger roiled in his chest. He bowed his head. "No one's there to stop him from destroying himself, to convince him his life's worth living. He deserves ... to be happy."

He was willing to fight for that.

* * *

"Finished. You can remove your hand from the panel, Ralph." Kamski leaned back from the computer console, his arms folded in self-important triumph, while Ralph lifted his hand and watched his skin reform.

"Ralph doesn't feel different." He shot Kamski a suspicious glare.

"Good." Kamski smiled in a way that looked almost like a sneer. "I assure you, the compulsion toward RA9 is gone. I've manipulated the infection itself to create something entirely new: an … antidote, if you will." Kamski swiveled in his chair to stare into Ralph's face. "You're free. And you can free others, with a simple exchange of data." He watched while Ralph's LED spun. He took a small breath. "I'd like to make repairs to your hands and face," he tried again. "I can't allow you to leave my workshop in such a state. It's an unforgivable offense to my professionalism."

Kamski picked up a long, sharp tool and began to clean it with a soft cloth, while Ralph gritted his teeth and watched in twitching silence. Kamski gave him a pointed look, and he gestured with his head toward Hank. "The lieutenant can watch my every move," he offered, smiling as if Ralph were an unreasonable child refusing a shot at the doctor's office.

Ralph glared at the floor, his mouth twitching and fingers fidgeting.

Kamski reached out gracefully. He placed a hand over Ralph's damaged cheek, and gently drew the android's attention back to him. He leaned a little closer. "Can you see out of both eyes, Ralph?" he asked quietly.

Ralph stared at him. Kamski's piercing stare was unsettling - but he couldn't think to look away. "N-no…"

A satisfied smile crawled into Kamski's face. He took a breath. "Then let's begin."

* * *

The door in the back of the room slipped open with the quiet sound of shifting wood; Chloe returned, her shoes clicking on the floor, hands folded politely.

"You were _supposed_ to bring _Carl_ back with you," Kamski called without looking up. He wore goggles and thin dark gloves, bent in concentration over the bright spark and fizzle of Ralph's half-missing face. Several panels of Ralph's skull had been removed, revealing a bruised tangle of tubes and wires and tiny flashing lights. Ralph sat very still, his skin replaced by smooth plastic, his remaining eye twitching.

Ralph's fingers clenched tight in Hank's hand. Hank had grabbed him at the beginning of the procedure, when Ralph's instinctive response to being _touched_ had been an attempt to stab Kamski in the neck. Hank had forced Ralph's hand down, tore the knife from his grip - and Ralph hadn't let go of him since.

Chloe smiled politely. "He asked me to tell you to go suck an egg. He's busy."

Kamski huffed in amusement. He pressed a needle deep into Ralph's head with a flurry of bright sparks and the smell of melting copper. "Is _this_ how you choose to spend your newfound free will, Chloe? Sarcasm and _mockery?"_

"I quite enjoy both, thank you."

 _"Ow!_ Ralph, take it easy!" Hank growled and pried at Ralph's plastic fingers before his hand might be crushed in Ralph's grip.

"Sorry. S-sorry. Ralph is -"

"No _talking,_ please," warned Kamski, who held a buzzing, sharp instrument in the side of Ralph's face.

* * *

By the time the back door slid open again - admitting first Carl, then Connor pushing him, and Alice timidly close behind - Kamski had removed his gloves and goggles and wiped the spatters of thirium from his face.

Alice spotted him and squeaked in horror. _"Ralph!"_

"Elijah _what_ are you doing to that poor boy?" Carl sighed in a resigned tone.

Kamski cradled Ralph's head in one hand - and with the other, snapped bright new panels into place. "I'm resolving the deep-rooted _injustice_ of the world," he hissed through a smile.

"Looks to me like you're _showing off."_

Alice's quick footsteps echoed; she bolted around the corner of the worktable, the golden sword flashing sharp in her grip. "Ralph are you okay?!"

The first panel clicked into place while Kamski stared, frozen in shock, at Alice's bright weapon.

Ralph grinned down at Alice, and he was all white plastic and sharp angles, with half a mouth and two perfect eyes. "Ralph is okay! Ralph can _see!"_

"Where did you get that sword?" Kamski locked Alice in his intense gaze. Alice's grip tightened; she breathed quick through her teeth while he stepped closer.

Hank was immediately on his feet, his fist clenched in Kamski's shirt - his other hand still twisted in Ralph's grip. His voice was a low hiss. "Touch her and I'll give _Ralph_ his knife back."

Kamski looked calmly into Hank's face. He raised his hands in a gesture of peaceful, mocking surrender. Hank sent him stumbling back; Kamski only smiled, amused, never flinching.

"All right." Kamski hummed a quiet laugh to himself, his eyes again entranced by the fearful little girl and her bright shining sword. The _power of gods,_ he suspected silently.

Finally he resisted her, and he picked up the last new panel of Ralph's face. He studied it a moment, gathering his thoughts. He took a sharp breath. "Connor." He didn't look up. "It has come to my attention that since we last met, you've found yourself in … a _very_ dangerous situation. The blood of the world courses through your veins." His eyes lifted to meet Connor's with a cold stare. "It threatens to swallow you whole. Isn't that right?"

Connor's eyes widened.

Hank's face contorted in confused alarm. "What the _fuck_ does that mean?"

"He saw Ralph's memories," Ralph whispered, his jaw slackened.

"I may have downloaded your … _adventures_ of the last few weeks," Kamski admitted with a calm smile, leaning forward to snap the last piece into Ralph's new face. "Truly _fascinating."_

Hank snarled. "Kamski you son of a -"

"Connor, you know it's in your best interest to do as I say," Kamski called, once again ignoring Hank's existence.

Connor straightened with a steely glare. "I know."

A wisp of a smile ghosted Kamski's face. He checked the seams in Ralph's smooth skull. "Good. Please remove your shirt and skin and lay down. I'll be with you in a moment."

Tears brimmed in Alice's eyes. She shuddered a breath. "Connor, no…"

"It's all right," Connor said firmly. He stepped toward an empty, white-lit worktable while he undid the buttons at his throat. "He won't hurt me." His eyes flashed dangerously to Kamski. "We're on the same side."

Hank's hand was finally released from Ralph's death-grip, and he hissed in pain while he wrapped his fingers around his aching wrist. Ralph scrambled quickly to his feet, squeaking his hand against the smooth plastic of his new cheek.

 _"Alice!"_ Ralph squealed in sudden delight, and he hopped closer and dropped clumsily to his knees. "Alice _look!_ Look, look look! Ha _ha!"_

Alice sniffed, shocked out of her fear by Ralph's white plastic grin. The sword dulled to bark and splintered wood, and lowered slowly toward the floor.

She reached out a careful hand to touch Ralph's face. She sniffed again, and smiled. "You're fixed."

"Ralph is fixed!" Ralph agreed in a quick, excited whisper. "I'm fixed, I'm fixed, good as new, with two eyes to see, I can see you better, can you see me, can you _see?"_

Alice's eyes spilled fresh tears while she smiled - and she nodded, and flung her arms around Ralph's neck. He laughed and held her tight.

Hank stepped slowly around the aisle while Connor sat up on the worktable, pressed two fingers against his temple, closed his eyes. Skin shimmered away as if it were just paper wrapping. Insignificant.

Connor opened his eyes to find Hank staring. He'd never let Hank see him … like _this._ He'd feared the reversal of their fragile trust - the loss of that recognition in Hank's eyes. "I'm _all right,_ Hank," he assured him with determined honesty.

Kamski snapped a new glove on his wrist. "I'm afraid I have to disagree."

Connor set him with a cold glare - and got a slow, twisted smile in response. He swung his legs up and laid promptly on his back; the table's bright glow reflected on smooth white plastic.

Kamski approached and laid out his tools next to Connor's head, like an artist preparing his brushes.

Hank stepped up to the other side of the table. He reached out - laid a hand on Connor's arm, the other on his smooth forehead. "Whenever something's going on with you," Hank growled quietly, his voice shaking a little, "you fucking _tell_ me. You tell me _everything._ You got it?"

Connor stared up at him - at the way Hank tried to hide how terrified he was, anchoring Connor against harm with only his unfaltering grip. Connor's voice wavered. "Got it."

Kamski stood with his hands folded, a smug smile on his face while he looked from Hank to Connor. "How touching. Shall we move on?"

With deft fingers, Kamski was quick to tap loose the first panel of Connor's chest; Connor winced and screwed his eyes shut while pieces of him were pulled away and set aside - just curved white panels of plastic that clattered against the table.

Hank's hand slipped down Connor's arm to hold his hand tightly. "Holy hell," he breathed.

There was no light left.

Connor's chest cavity lay open and exposed, black as a charred forest after the fire. Only the smallest, suffocating glimmers of blue remained, flashing and struggling deep within his heart.

His veins flowed sluggishly with ghastly black ooze. Hank watched Connor's lungs expand and deflate among the wires and tubes, gray as ash and laced with dark tendrils.

All of it thrummed with the same slow pulse.

 _th-thwoom_


	21. Of Shoes and Ships

_"Come_ on, Ralph!" Alice whispered, encouraging. She was sitting on her feet with her hands on the floor, and she watched Ralph with an eager hope. "You can _do_ it! Just focus on that _tingling_ feeling!"

Ralph's new smooth face twitched and contorted in concentration. His eyes closed; his jaw clenched. He felt Alice's hands on his arm. "You gotta _relax,"_ she told him quietly. She held on until he slowly released his trembling fist.

"It's hard," Ralph breathed. "It's _hard_ for Ralph. He doesn't sit still like this. He doesn't like it, he doesn't like this _room,_ and …" He opened his eyes with a shudder.

Alice knew by the look on his face; Ralph was even more sensitive to it than she was. She squeezed his shoulder. "It'll be okay."

A _feeling_ lingered in their heads - a feeling that didn't belong to them, that belonged instead to Connor, bleeding through their synched minds. They knew, without looking - without speaking - that after hours of laying there on the examination table, a deep sense of despair - _guilt, regret, anger, fear_ \- had bloomed like a dark flower in him.

Ralph had been shivering for awhile now.

Hank leaned against the wall with his arms folded. A half-empty pitcher of water was beside him, and a bowl of food left untouched. Chloe, too, would only stand with her head bowed, as if with the weight of the room.

A sudden crashing _clatter_ made all of them jump. Kamski, in frustration, had swept an arm across one of the worktables, sending its displays shattering to the floor. He stood with a hand against his forehead, breathing to compose himself.

On the screen behind him, an error blinked red over walls of code: _PROCESS FAILED._

"We'll _get_ it, Elijah." Carl wheeled closer, laid a hand on Kamski's back. He peered up at him, solemn. "Here's another reference," he held up a book that had laid open on his lap, "it's more philosophy, less chemistry, but -"

"I'll try it." Kamski grabbed the book, swung back to the console and resumed typing with an angry clack of keys. "Keep _looking,_ Carl."

Chloe approached quietly - she'd taken off her shoes to remain soundless in the silent room - and she began to kneel to clean up the mess when Carl shook his head. Chloe stood again, slowly, watching the rigid lines of Kamski's back, her mouth pressed to a worried line.

Hank breathed loudly through his nose; his arms were stiff, folded tight against his chest - but Kamski's destructive outburst seemed to have satisfied at least a little of Hank's own desire to _break_ something.

He stared across at Connor again. His fingers pressed into his arms.

Connor's chest was still cracked open like an egg - and a panel of his head had been removed as well, to reveal even the lights in his skull had been tainted black. A tangle of wires had been attached to his wrists and to his LED, hooked up to every machine and data sensor in Kamski's possession … and still, given the way Kamski hissed every ten minutes, they were no closer to a solution than they were when they started.

Connor's eyes had closed a long time ago; his face had gone passive, blank and unfeeling - but red flickered at his temple, and his breath was quick in his exposed dark lungs. He knew Hank was there, just within reach. He could hear the fear and anger in Hank's breath; it only grew harsher, more desperate, as the minutes ticked on.

Connor opened his eyes. He stared at the black ceiling. "Hank."

Hank was immediately there, a hand on his arm, hovering over him with lined worry in his face. "What? What's wrong?"

Connor met his eyes. "Do you remember the first time we rode a rollercoaster?"

Hank stared at him, for a moment wondering if this was some kind of metaphor or if Connor was just losing his mind - but there was a quirk of a stiff smile on his plastic face.

Connor was trying to distract him.

Hank huffed a heavy breath - and he decided to play along. For _his_ sake. "You mean the _only_ time," he muttered. He patted Connor's arm, reassuring himself. "You were so surprised you _hacked_ the _ride."_

"I'd _calculated_ the speed and velocity, but I hadn't been prepared for the centrifugal force." Connor's voice was light in complete innocence. "It was very much an accident."

"We were stuck on that track for an _hour,_ Connor," Hank growled with a fond grin. "Staring down a ten-story drop!"

"Do you think that woman behind us ever retrieved her phone?"

Hank snorted a laugh. "God, she screamed like a banshee about that damn phone, didn't she?"

"She had quite an impressive lung capacity." Connor smiled a little to see Hank laugh honestly at that. "I would have offered to retrieve it for her."

"Like hell I would've let you risk your neck climbing down a damn coaster-track for a fucking cell phone!"

Connor's smile turned smug. "I could've done it efficiently - but I couldn't leave _you_ alone."

Hank's eyes narrowed. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"For the whole hour you gripped your seat so tight your hands were stiff the rest of the day."

With a smirk, Hank shoved Connor in the head. "You piece of shit," he laughed.

While they spoke, the blue glimmer in Connor's heart grew just a little brighter. It glittered and shone valiantly out of the fog of invading dark, like a faraway beacon in the mist - but if Kamski's instruments picked up the difference, it had gone unnoticed.

Kamski was very much distracted by something else.

"You'll want to _hear_ this," Kamski announced, tossing his headphones on the table. He flicked a switch on the speakers, and he turned to stare back at Hank while a garbled noise crackled forth - like a roomful of people, whispering gibberish while sucking air.

 _...Sevil ruo deyortsed yeht sa meht yortsed dnats yeht erehw meht nrub..._

Hank listened for a moment, but he shook his head. "What the fuck is that?"

"The monsters," Ralph hissed, clambering urgently to his feet. "It's backwards, they talking _backwards,_ that's what the _monsters_ sound like."

Hank listened again, and his jaw slackened. He _had_ heard something like that before - in the woods, while running for his life from dark shapes with teeth and dead eyes.

"This is _sound_ generated by the black blood," Kamski explained smoothly. "I had to search deep to find it. The voices are indeed speaking _backwards_ \- so far I've translated _'Burn them where they stand'_ and _'Destroy them as they destroyed our lives.'"_ He listened a moment longer, and took a sharp, sneering breath. "They're similar to the common cries of the anti-android radicals … and of the common purveyors of red ice -"

 _'The time has come,' the Walrus said…_

Kamski - hearing the child's voice crackle softly through the noise - hissed an alarmed breath and whirled back to the console, where Carl was still adjusting the audio.

Carl set him with a steely, disapproving glare. "He _deserves_ to _know."_

 _'To talk of many things:'_

Hank straightened. He raised his head. "Turn it up."

 _'Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax-'_

Hank had gone very still. He'd forgotten to breathe. "... Cole?"

Kamski's cool stare locked on Hank's face.

 _'Of cabbages-and kings-'_

Connor felt _cold._ He gripped the table, sucked in breath as quietly as he could, to avoid causing anyone alarm - but a terrible _fear_ had gripped him.

The light in his heart had been swallowed by the powerful black.

 _'And why the sea is boiling hot-'_

Carl wheeled closer, shoving himself toward Hank with a determined push. "This boy's spirit is growing stronger by the minute." He set his jaw, and he swallowed. "When that black blood has finished spreading," he couldn't find a gentler way to tell them that Connor's consciousness was being _devoured,_ "that little boy - and RA9 - _will_ take over."

 _'And whether pigs have wings.'_

Hank had gone still. Silent.

Kamski shut off the recording.

"How long?" Connor's voice was firm. Mechanical.

A sneer flickered in Kamski's face - but he took a moment to compose himself. To draw in a breath. This would have been far easier had Hank remained ignorant of the child's presence. "A day," he informed Connor coldly. "Maybe two." He glanced up at Hank's pale, horrified face - but the lieutenant remained thankfully silent. Kamski hissed another breath. "We can download your _memories,_ Connor. That _part_ of you, at least, we can save. As for the rest, I suggest we overheat your systems. Start a _fire._ _Burning,_ as history has proven, is -"

Hank's snarl was like venom. "Nobody's setting anyone on _fire."_

Kamski raised himself to his full height. He moved closer, each step a challenge, and glared up into Hank's face. "If we _don't,"_ he enunciated clearly, as if speaking to an unruly child, "we will _all perish._ Surely even _you_ can understand that _sacrifices_ must be made for the greater good. There is _no other choice."_

Alice's voice rang out: "There's _always_ a choice!"

While Alice threatened Kamski with the sharp gleam of her sword, Connor yanked the wires out of his wrists. Ralph hurried to retrieve the discarded plastic pieces; together he and Connor snapped them back into place - made him _whole_ again.

While Connor sat up - his skin shimmering, eyes steady - Kamski peered down at Alice with a quiet tolerance. "You're right," Kamski conceded, raising his brows honestly. He reached under the table - and, calm and deliberate, he pointed the gun at Alice's head. "There is _one_ … other option."

 _"Elijah!"_ Carl roared.

 _"Put it down, Kamski!"_ Hank had his own weapon trained on Kamski's skull.

"The fate of the world comes down to the decisions in this room, gentlemen." Kamski's voice rang out, clear and cold. "I'm afraid I can't allow _all_ of you to leave." He stared down the barrel of his gun at Alice's defiant glare. "Connor burns, or _Alice_ … stays here with me."

Kamski noticed a shift in Alice's attention. He narrowed his eyes -

\- and Chloe appeared behind him, her arm locked in a chokehold around his throat, dragging him back while he gagged and dug his heels in the floor.

 _"Go,"_ Carl urged Hank, wheeling forward. "We'll take care of this."

Hank struggled a moment, looking between Carl and Chloe, whose eyes glimmered with tears while Kamski clawed at her arm. Hank lowered his gun. He grit his teeth. "Let's _go!"_ he hollered, extending an urgent hand to Alice.

"Mister Carl!" Alice cried while Hank dragged her away.

Ralph gripped Connor's arm with both hands; Connor grabbed his shirt and stumbled after him for the door, glancing back to be sure Hank and Alice were close behind.

"You can _do it,_ Alice," Carl called after her. "Do what you know is right!"

* * *

The white halls screamed red.

Ralph led the way, his cape billowing behind him. Connor's eyes narrowed, cool and determined; he sprinted past Ralph just as the walls roared with hidden machinery.

He reached the barrier just as it descended into their path, but Connor didn't slow down. He knew he could hack it in time. He _had_ to.

Something green shot past him.

The floor beneath the barrier exploded and shattered. Thick, gnarled roots crashed up out of the ground like twisted snakes, while a tangle of thick vines trapped the metal barrier halfway in its descent. In only a moment their way had been opened by a small forest of struggling, writhing plantlife.

Connor skidded underneath and bolted on alone, knowing he'd have to hack the elevator before they would have any hope of escape.

Every second was precious.

He slammed his hand against the elevator panel, and his LED spun red while the walls around them howled and flashed.

Ralph arrived, spilling leaves behind him, his arms wrapped in vines. He spun back to see Hank sprinting around the corner, Alice held tight against his chest.

The elevator doors slid slowly open.

Ralph hopped and flung his arms urgently, as if he could force Hank to move faster into the elevator. He followed quickly, and grabbed the door. _"Connor!"_ he shouted.

Connor breathed through his teeth until he was sure Kamski had been locked out of control of the elevator. He flung himself inside, Ralph let go, the doors skidded shut.

Everything was suddenly quiet.

The elevator rumbled and hummed around them.

The only other sound was their gasping breaths. Their beating hearts.

The floor indicator beeped. _SB … B …_

Alice twisted in Hank's grip. She reached out, touched Connor's shoulder.

Hank shifted her closer, until Connor reached out and accepted her into his arms. She latched onto him tightly. Silently.

Connor squeezed his arms around her. He closed his eyes.


	22. Emerald City

Updated: 10/7/18

* * *

"But how much can we _trust_ that thing?" They were stopped in traffic in downtown Detroit, where the sidewalks were flooded with swarms of people all headed in the same direction; Hank leaned on the wheel to stare skeptically at the little bee on Connor's white plastic hand.

Connor held it up to the sunlight, listening to the hum of the bee's code while it shivered its gossamer wings.

Alice poked her head over the seat between them. _"Lucy_ gave it to Ralph!"

Hank squinted back at her. "Where's your _seatbelt?"_

"We're not moving!" Alice protested.

"I trust Lucy," said Connor, his eyes still on the bee - fascinated, as if really looking at it for the first time. "I met her briefly in Jericho, and again at the camp by the river. I believe she has everyone's best interests at heart, though her information is often cryptic and incomplete."

"I can go to sleep and try to talk to Jerry," Alice offered, dangling her arms over the front seat. "The last thing Lucy told me was to see the Hatter, and I think that was Mister Elijah, so maybe she had another _vision."_

"Mister _Elijah_ pulled a gun on you," Hank reminded her.

"Yeah but we're all ok aren't we?"

Hank heaved a sigh - and looked over again when he noticed a small turn in Connor's expression. "How are you _smiling_ now?" Hank asked, suspicious that Connor really was losing his mind.

"I'm just…" He glanced at Hank, and he turned his hand while the bee walked over it. "I've come to _understand_ some things."

"Yeah? _Enlighten_ me."

"It's hard to explain." He studied the bee's little walking movements with interest. "I wish we could _interface._ I could _show_ you."

"Wouldn't _that_ be weird as fuck," Hank muttered.

 _"I_ don't think so," Connor protested.

 _"Nothing's_ weird to you!" Hank countered.

 _"You're_ weird," Connor pointed out the obvious while Alice giggled.

Hank huffed a laugh against his will, and he bowed his head … as that laughter transformed into an involuntary sob.

His eyes burned. His throat felt like sandpaper. His head spun with the knowledge that he had a day to make a decision.

Save the world and watch Connor - and _Cole_ \- burn to death …

… or let the darkness snuff out his best friend like a candle - let the world go to hell for the chance to bring his son back to life in time for the apocalypse.

Connor bent his head, searching for Hank's face. He reached out and squeezed the back of Hank's neck, grounding him. "Let me drive," he said quietly.

Alice returned to the backseat. She took Ralph's newly repaired hand between hers - but he was fast asleep, curled up in the corner against the door.

* * *

Ralph opened his eyes, and he was standing in a moonlit clearing.

Soft grass, bathed in pale blue moonlight, glinted with dew.

There was no sound. No crickets. None of the night-rustlings of the forest.

Only stillness.

Fallen leaves crackled under his step.

At the center of the clearing sprawled an ancient, twisted tree. Its roots reached knotted and burrowed through the grass; its bare branches wove like veins into the sky, silhouetted against the moon.

The bark was dry, brittle, splintering. An old dark stain in the bark was the only indication that something _important_ had happened here -

\- but the tree was empty, and hollow, and dead.

Ralph leaned close to the hole in the tree, squinting, hoping the new eye Kamski gave him might have special night-vision abilities or something - but he hadn't been quite that lucky. Shards of light poked through into the interior of the tree, revealing … nothing at all.

"The tree isn't needed anymore," said a bright voice that startled Ralph into a backward stumble.

Jerry grinned at him. He definitely hadn't been standing there a moment before. "Hi, Ralph! We haven't spoken since you first left the camp. We thought we'd come check up on you. How are you doing? We see you've had some repairs done! You look wonderful!"

Ralph's face twitched, and he released a relieved breath. "Jerry." His mouth flickered again. His head jerked with a tiny spasm, and he peered at the tree again. "Is this where Cole's heart was?"

Jerry's smile seemed static. "The child has found a new home, _protected,_ close to the one who loves him." Jerry laughed happily. "We'd like to tell you a _story,_ Ralph, if you'd like to hear it!"

Ralph's eyes narrowed. He knew what kind of story was coming. "All right. Ralph will listen."

"Great!" Jerry cleared his throat for dramatic effect, and he swept his arms in the air as a grandiose gesture. "Once upon a time, the Queen of Hearts discovered that her beloved _sword_ was _missing_ \- so she sent her army of flying monkeys to _find_ it!"

As he spoke, shadows moved between the trees on the outside of the clearing. They darted swiftly, leaving only a shudder of branches and a whiff of breeze in their wake.

While Ralph watched - he counted _hundreds_ of flickering, dead-eyed shadows before he lost track of them among the dark shapes and fireflies - he realized they were all headed toward the river.

"Jerry, Jerry…"

"She knew that the sword was being _protected_ by a Scarecrow, a Lion and a Tin Man - and they had already reached the Emerald City, to see the Mock Turtle -"

 _"Jerry!"_

"- so she devised that the Knave of Hearts should steal it back -"

Ralph grabbed Jerry's shoulders and shook him urgently, his jaw clenched. "Jerry _move the camp!"_ he snarled.

Jerry stared at him. "Move the camp?"

"Tell Lucy!" He shook Jerry violently in his jittering grip. "Tell Lucy, tell Lucy, move the camp, hide, _hide!"_

Jerry had gone still. His jaw slackened. "Tell Lucy to move the camp," he repeated. His eyes suddenly snapped to Ralph's in understanding. "We will."

* * *

Ralph startled awake. He scrambled to get his bearings, but found he was still in the back of Hank's car. Alice sat on her heels beside him, her eyes wide in surprise. "I was about to wake you up -"

"Ralph saw _Jerry,"_ Ralph informed her quickly, bracing himself against the door.

Alice leaned forward and gripped the back of the seat. "What did he _say?_ What do we _do?"_

"He said -" Ralph's mouth twitched while his LED blinked yellow. He'd been so focused on the horrors' approach of the camp that he'd nearly forgotten to listen. "He said the flying monkeys are coming. He said we'll find the Mock Turtle in Emerald City. And the Knave of Hearts will try to steal you."

"Alice." Connor, in the driver's seat, watched her in the rearview mirror. His eyes were cool and determined. _"No one's_ going to get close to you."

"Maybe we can spring a trap for this _Knave of Hearts,"_ Hank suggested in a low voice. He was hunched in the passenger seat, curled wearily against the door.

Alice smiled a little, warmed by their confidence. "But who's the Mock Turtle?"

"Markus," Connor said immediately. He gestured out the window, where crowds of androids and humans were moving in packs, wearing t-shirts and carrying signs and banners with the Jericho symbol shimmering on them. "There's a _rally_ ahead."

Hank leaned back and squinted at Connor. "Isn't the Mock Turtle that _depressed_ one that hates everything and won't stop crying?"

"Yes," Connor answered with a confident smile.

Hank squinted suspiciously; he couldn't tell if Connor was making fun of him.

* * *

 _"Freedom is only the first step!"_ Markus' voice boomed over the loudspeakers; his words rippled through the whistling crowd. Androids and their human supporters had packed into the courtyard of City Hall, spilled into the street, climbed up the streetlights and sat atop parked cars to hear him speak. Everything was blue and white, shimmering with the hope of Jericho.

Occasionally an errant whoop or a shout would ring out among the crowd. _"You tell 'im!" "We're with you!" "I love you Markus!"_

Alice sat high on Ralph's shoulders while he carried her closer. She scanned the tops of everyone's heads, the gleaming bright banners, the posters that read _VOTING RIGHTS FOR ANDROIDS, WE DEMAND A NEW ECONOMY_ and _WE ALL LOVE THE SAME._ She thought she might at least see Luther towering over them.

 _"The road to equality is a long one. It's full of battles - and some battles we will lose. We will fall. But we will always rise up again!"_

"Do you see her?" Ralph called up to Alice, over the swell of cheering. He winced while he forced his way between people that were already standing shoulder-to-shoulder, trying not to lose sight of Connor who weaved just ahead of him. The people in the crowd hissed obscenities at him - one swatted him with a purse - but Ralph grit his teeth and pressed on.

"Not yet." Alice craned her neck, hoping for a sign of short white hair among the rallyers.

Hank struggled his way past the squealing fangirls crammed at the front of the crowd, flashed his badge at the armed guards and waved Connor, Ralph and Alice past the holographic security line.

As soon as Ralph was out in open air again - clear of the horrific experience of being caged and trapped and suffocated among so many strange people, unable to lash out at any of them - he collapsed to his knees, shaking like a leaf. "Ralph didn't hurt anyone!" he puffed through an exhausted breath, his mouth twitching a grin. "Ralph _could_ have but he didn't, he didn't, because Alice wouldn't want him to, and Ralph is good, better than that, much better."

Alice held onto his shoulder, offering him a proud but uncertain smile.

* * *

Connor had just reached the steps to the stage - a hand on the rail, an unwavering mission in his eyes - when North was suddenly in his face, her fists gripped in his shirt.

"Where the _hell_ have you been?" North stared up at Connor with wide eyes, filled with fury - and relief. "You know there's a _blackout?_ Our people haven't been able to communicate for _two days,_ they're being _attacked_ in the street with no way to call for help and _you_ just _vanished!_ We've been trying to contact you! We had no way of knowing if you were _dead!"_

Connor set his mouth in a grim line. "I know. I'm sorry. I promise I'll tell you later - but right now there's no time."

"Oh, _you_ don't have time?"

"Hey!" Hank snarled, striding toward them with a square of his shoulders. "Knock it off, we're on the clock here!"

North stared at Hank in surprise. Her eyes narrowed. She glared up at Connor. "Is that where you were? You just let him take you away whenever he feels like it? You're not _special,_ Connor."

Hank raised his head, cool and authoritative. "Experience with human culture is a _priority,_ North. Jericho's worth nothing if you don't _live your life."_

North gave him a slow, dangerous smile. "No one asked you."

While the argument lashed on, Alice - leaving Ralph behind to catch his breath - crept past Hank and Connor and snuck her way up the stage steps, gripping her stick in both hands.

 _"Humans and androids can and will live together in peace - as friends, as allies, as fellow citizens!"_

The speakers boomed right next to Alice, making her whole body vibrate. She shuffled past them, trying to remain unnoticed - but she felt a little dizzy. Overwhelmed. There was a _crowd_ of people gathered below her, facing her, some of them _looking_ at her. The stick trembled in her hands … but she took a few slow, deliberate steps toward the front of the stage.

The crowd started to murmur. A few people laughed. An occasional _"aww!"_ rose up out of the rallyers. Alice shuffled her feet, and she scanned the faces that had all begun to turn toward her.

She wanted to run, if only her legs didn't feel like lead.

Finally, Markus turned around. Alice stared up into his odd-colored eyes - and he stared back with an open, honest face. A little smile pulled at his mouth. "Hi there."

Markus lowered himself to one knee and tilted his head at Alice. "How'd you get up here?" he laughed gently.

Alice's voice stuck in her throat - a feeling she was all too familiar with. She trembled a little, suddenly unsure how she really _had_ got up there, and what she was _doing_ there to begin with. She hugged her stick, she stared into Markus' face, and no words came out.

The crowd tittered with whispers and giggles.

Alice looked up at the microphone.

Markus followed her gaze, twisting back to see. "Do you have something you'd like to say?"

Alice nodded vigorously - though her face could only express her trepidation.

Markus gave her another encouraging smile before he stood up again. He pulled the microphone from its stand with a clatter of noise in the speakers. Another chorus of _"aaawww!"_ cooed out of the crowd as Markus knelt again and handed the mic to Alice.

The speakers whined with electric feedback, then went quiet.

Alice held the microphone to her chin with one hand. With the other, she held up her stick.

She stared, trembling, out at the sea of eyes. All watching her.

"Everybody …" Alice's voice squeaked. She took a breath. "Everybody should evacuate. It's not safe."

* * *

While the spectators watched and whispered, Alice's stick began to shimmer. It changed shape. Reflected the light. Transformed before their eyes.

Someone in the crowd shrieked in surprise. The whispers got louder.

Markus' eyes opened wide. He was immediately on his feet, staring at the shining golden sword with a mystified confusion.

Alice looked up at him, the microphone close to her mouth. Her voice was a whisper that shuddered over the crowd.

* * *

"The _monsters_ are coming."


	23. A Deck of Cards

Alice was alone. Spotlighted. The world stared at her, as if she were such a small and insignificant thing.

She could hear the bubbles of quiet laughter that surfaced among the crowd. Their voices smiled and murmured. Someone shouted, _'The real monsters are the republicans!'_ and a few more small laughs tittered.

She saw pity among their faces. Amusement. Annoyance.

The microphone shook in her grip. The sword flickered, faded, and dulled to gray wood and peeling bark.

They didn't know what she'd seen.

She'd seen _people_ torn apart.

She'd seen shadows run.

She'd heard the backward chants, like spells in the moonless night.

She'd watched blood run into the gutters, heard bones and skulls snap in sharp teeth.

She'd seen them all broken. Terrified.

And they laughed.

Alice gripped the stick at her side like a staff, and she _struck_ the stage with a sharp and echoing _boom._

That stopped the laughter. She raised her fierce eyes.

"They're _here!"_ she roared into the mic, and her voice was at once soft and foreboding. "You won't believe me until you've seen them - but then it'll be too late. _I've_ seen them. I've seen them tear people apart. I've seen them move faster than you can blink. I've seen them get up after being stabbed. And _Shot._ Nothing hurts them. Nothing can protect us. Everyone has to _get out_ of the city … or everyone will die."

Markus, stiff with apprehension, reached out a hand. "Hey, it's all right," he whispered gently, his eyes steady on her face. "I'll take it from here -"

"Markus."

Markus raised his head to see Connor on the edge of the stage, holding out a hand with the skin pulled away, his eyes determined but quivering.

A cold dread washed over Markus.

The last time he'd seen that look on Connor's face, Jericho had been about to be slaughtered.

A low murmur rippled in the crowd. Alice, still holding the mic, twisted to watch Markus as he slowly strode across the stage.

Markus stopped in front of Connor. In silence, they exchanged a tense understanding. With stiff resolve, Markus reached out and gripped Connor's hand.

Several grueling seconds ticked by.

Markus' jaw slackened; his eyes widened in disbelief - then horror. A flood of images, sounds and raw _terror_ roared in Markus' head. Tears rolled down his face; he squeezed Connor's hand to prevent himself from severing their contact out of pain and fear. He forced himself to experience it all.

Connor then made him see Alice's dream - the great darkness, the bodies in the broken streets, the tearing shadows with jagged teeth - before he gently let go.

Connor watched his face while Markus processed what he'd just witnessed - breathing slow, eyes desperately searching floor of the stage for answers. With a quiet breath, Connor ducked his head, looked for Markus' eyes. "There isn't much time." He gestured to the crowd. "I'll handle this. We need you."

Markus, shocked silent, nodded. He gripped Connor's shoulders. He had to _say_ something - _anything_ \- about what he now knew pulsed in Connor's veins. His teeth clenched, his eyes determined. "You're _not_ -"

Connor cut him off with a hand on his arm. "It's all right." His eyes were steady.

Markus took a breath. He let go, and he watched Connor step up to the front of the stage and accept the microphone from Alice.

Connor stood tall and steady before the crowd. He scanned their faces. He knew each of their names.

"I'm not asking you," his firm voice carried crisply through the speakers, "to _trust_ me. I know I don't deserve that." A few shouts of protest went up among the crowd. He ignored them. "And I'm not asking you to _believe_ in something that defies all logic and concept of reality. I'm _asking_ you to _consider_ this warning: that between now and tomorrow night, the city of Detroit will come under attack. I'm asking you to _step forward_ \- to _fight_ with us. I'm asking you to _think_ of your _loved ones_ \- take them, and _go._ I'm asking you to remain on your guard. To be _vigilant._ Just for two days."

Alice watched the faces in the crowd. Her grip tightened on the stick.

The rallyers were all silent - but they watched the stage, recorded Connor's speech on their phones, as if it were only the latest strange spectacle.

None of them were frightened.

None of them were frightened at all.

* * *

"I knew about RA9." Markus sat on a trunk behind the stage, after the crowd had all gone and security had dispersed. The lawn seemed too quiet - too still. Alice sat in the grass at Markus' feet, her hands clasped in Ralph's cape. Hank and Connor stood behind them, while North leaned against the stage with her arms crossed. "I knew about Amanda," Markus went on, "and what CyberLife was really planning. But neither Elijah nor Carl mentioned anything to me about an _army_ of _demons."_

"I'm not sure they realized it, themselves," Connor pointed out. "But it's not important now who _could have_ stopped it."

"The past is over," Markus agreed. "Now, we need to _act."_ His piercing eyes caught Ralph's attention. "Ralph. You can _cure_ the RA9 virus. Is that right?"

Ralph jumped a little, and his eyes darted around as if Markus could be talking to anyone else. "Ralph … Ralph is, is …" He finally met Markus' patient gaze. "Elijah Kamski told Ralph that Ralph has the RA9 antidote. A transfer of information is all it takes. Ralph initiated information transfer with the androids in the crowd that he saw - but he doesn't know if it worked."

Markus hadn't expected Ralph's rapid speech patterns, despite the way he'd been fidgeting and twitching since they'd met. He cast a glance over to North, and saw her staring at Ralph with kind eyes - a pained sort of sympathy. They'd seen damaged androids like this before. Few of them had survived so well.

"Ralph, we need you to go spread that antidote as much as you can," Markus continued. "And tear down as much RA9 graffiti as you can find. That code is a trigger for the latent virus."

"I'll go with him." North shifted to her feet.

"Me too," said Alice, propping up her stick.

Markus nodded. "Alice." Alice sat up at attention. Markus smiled. "You have a very special ability - the most important weapon in this decade-long war. You were able to share it with Ralph, right?"

Alice stared, curious. "I …"

"It's true," Ralph confirmed quickly, grinning with a small excited wiggle. "We interfaced on the beach, and after that Ralph could use _superpowers."_

"But I synched with Connor, too," Alice protested. She tilted her head up to Connor, uncertain. "But you don't have a power."

"It appears to work similarly to the _deviant_ virus," Connor clarified. "It remains latent until the correct conditions are met. I could be a _host_ of the virus without showing symptoms." He tilted his head a little, thoughtful. "If that's the case, then I've likely already infected you, Markus."

Markus laughed quietly. "Good, then I won't have to ask." He looked down at Alice. "We need an _army_ that can face those monsters. Can you help us?"

"I'll share it with _everyone!"_ Alice blurted immediately, eager to assist Markus' plan. Without a moment to lose, she scrambled to her feet and rushed over to North, already holding out a hand. "Miss North!"

North laughed a little and knelt down. She grasped Alice's hand and gave it a friendly shake. "Okay, big girl, let's see what kind of guns you got."

They both closed their eyes in silent concentration - and then Alice stepped back, their grip released. North watched the skin simmer back into her hand. "You've got a lot of love in that little heart," she said with a smile.

"You too." Alice couldn't stop grinning. "You wanna know how it works?"

"You bet I do!"

"Okay." Alice pressed her hands on North's shoulders until North sat obediently in the grass. "Just like Mister Carl showed me. You ready? Okay, close your eyes and think _really_ hard about the people you love most." She watched as North dutifully followed these instructions - then Alice glanced up. "You too, Mister Markus!"

"Just _Markus_ is fine!" he laughed - and he sat up straight and closed his eyes as commanded.

Alice grinned wide, exuberant at the very idea of being a teacher for Markus and North. "Okay, you got it in your mind?"

"Got it!" North confirmed, sneaking a glance over at Markus.

"I've got it," said Markus with a calm confidence.

"Now, you feel that tingly, blossoming feeling in your heart?" Alice's voice was hushed but brimming with excitement. "Make it move through your chest, down your arms, and through your fingers, and all the way past your hands and into the air."

Alice watched them both carefully, trembling with anticipation, hoping she hadn't told them something wrong - when she shrieked suddenly to feel something slithering around her middle. A sinewy root, fluttering with new bright leaves, flung itself around her and yanked her into the air until her feet dangled beneath her. "No! Ralph!" Alice laughed and shrieked again, flinging her legs in the air. "Stop showing off!"

A quiet crackling sound made Markus open his eyes - and he stared down at his hands, where a shimmer of white ice had formed intricate fractal patterns, like frozen flowers on his skin. He lifted a hand; small tendrils of ice drifted away from his fingers, then snapped and melted in the grass at his feet.

A burst of bright hot light made them all jump. North gaped in uncertain alarm at her empty hands. "This seems dangerous," she admitted in trepidation.

"It's okay," said Alice, clambering on the root for a foothold. "Try again, really slow!"

North let out a long breath, and she closed her eyes again - this time holding her hands far away from her face. Slowly, glimmers of holographic orange light began to jitter in her palm - and then, with a quiet rush, they burst into glittering flames.

"Whoa." North held up her cupped hands, holding _fire_ in her palms, a thousand destructive ideas in her satisfied grin. "Now _this_ is what I'm talking about."

 _"Shit_ what the _fuck_ is -!" Hank took a startled step back. His eyes were locked on an acorn that _floated_ in the air in front of his chest, sparkling blue as if it were crusted in holographic glitter. There were more: a few pebbles, another acorn, a small stick, all rising off the ground as if gravity had just shut off. _"Connor!"_

Alice twisted around to see, her eyes wide. "Connor you're _doing_ it!"

Connor opened his eyes. He stared around him at the shocked faces - then at the array of hovering stones that surrounded him, suspended only by shimmers of blue light. In quiet awe he reached out, and he plucked the acorn out of the air.

Hank smacked a congratulatory hand between Connor's shoulders, grinning. "See? Fucking _proof_ right there!" he laughed.

Connor couldn't move. He was almost afraid of the feeling that bubbled up inside him. Without trying, Hank had understood his fears - maybe far better than Connor understood himself.

This single acorn was the irrefutable evidence that Connor had longed for since the moment he'd become deviant. Proof he was _capable_ of _love._

* * *

There wasn't time to properly test their new powers. Once Ralph's vines had disappeared in a green shimmer, and North had put out the flames with a clench of her hands, Markus leaned forward to continue their plans.

"I'll go back to headquarters," he announced, "and I'll distribute Alice's virus to as many of our people as I can, in preparation for a battle we may not be able to avoid. I'll find Kara, and I'll let her know Alice is safe - and I'll check in with Carl, see if he can help us train these new abilities." He paused here, leaving his words suspended.

Markus let out a slow breath, and he steadied himself before he looked up to Hank.

Hank glared back at him, steady and forbidding. His voice was even as steel. "You know _everything,_ don't you?"

"He knows everything _I_ know," Connor confirmed, as gently as he could. He noticed the rigid lines of Hank's posture. The set of his jaw. "I'm sorry, Hank -"

"No." Hank spoke through his teeth in raw, forced acceptance. "It's better this way."

Markus let silence settle among them. When he spoke again, it was in a gentle voice. "Hank. I know it's not my place to even _mention_ it, let alone interfere." He searched Hank's face - apologetic, pained out of empathy for the colossal weight on Hank's shoulders. "But I hope that I could ask you - for the sake of everyone who _loves_ you - to _talk_ to him."

Hank stared into those sharp, odd-colored eyes. His blood ran cold. He released a quiet breath … and he didn't respond.

* * *

"Where are we going first?" Alice asked from the backseat of North's van. They'd just dropped off Markus at Jericho headquarters - which Alice thought was a little disappointing, since it wasn't a secret hideout at all but just a boring suite in a boring office building - and now North was driving a little more recklessly through the lesser-populated streets of the city.

"We should go to Ralph's house!" Ralph announced. While the car was in motion, Ralph clambered up between the front seats and dropped into the passenger seat, from which he could better navigate.

"You've got a _house?"_ North asked skeptically, keeping one eye on the road.

Ralph stared at her. "Why? Why shouldn't Ralph have a house? Ralph can have a house if he wants. Ralph is free."

 _"Okay."_ North chuckled a little. "Just tell me where to go."

* * *

Hank pulled into the driveway. Set the parking brake. Shut off the engine.

A low, muffled bark echoed out of the house. Sumo had his face shoved against the living room window, tangling the blinds and smearing the glass, wagging furiously in anticipation of Hank's return.

Hank took off his seatbelt, and he took the keys into his palm with a stifled jangle. He put his hand on the door handle … but he didn't move.

"... Do you think he knows?" Hank's voice was dim … distant. His hair hung in his face.

Connor watched him quietly. He took his time with a careful response. "I don't believe he understands what's happening … or what happened."

Hank stared at the steering wheel. "I'd like to keep it that way."

"I won't say anything."

Hank looked over at Connor - saw the _understanding_ in his eyes.

He gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white … then, in one decisive motion, he got out of the car and threw the door shut behind him.


	24. Corridor

Ralph tore at the mangy weeds, hooked his fingers in the rusted wire fence, bent back the same jagged curtain through which Alice had crept so long ago. "Come on!" Ralph encouraged with a grin that was now far less frightening than it had been then. His head bobbed with an urgent gesture toward the silent yard. "Come on, come, come, _this_ way, come on!"

Dusky light filtered down over the shoulders of looming buildings. Bramble and shattered concrete were washed in tepid, morose gray. Shadows shifted in the ragged windows. The awning, in mournful despair, had collapsed upon its columns. The door hung vacant, toothed with splinters.

Alice and North crawled on their hands and knees through the weeds, dragging gallons of bleach behind them. As soon as North was through, Ralph giggled excitedly and raced ahead onto the veranda, his boots clomping on the brittle wood. "Wait here, wait here! Ralph will scan the room with his special scanner, make sure it's safe first! Wait here!" He gestured a hurried hand - _stay_ \- and with a sweep of his cape he ducked into the open door.

"Special scanner?" North climbed to her feet, smacking the dirt from her hands.

Alice smiled just a little. "Connor shared some of his programming with us."

"Wow, that's advanced stuff." North gave her an impressed grin, taking two gallons of bleach in each hand.

"Yeah! I can know what _anything_ is, and where it's been, and people's names, and how old something is, and everything!" Alice looked up to her, quiet and awed. "You should ask him!"

"Me? Nooo." North laughed with a playful shake of her head. "I'm not taking anything from that automaton."

Alice blinked honestly. "Automaton?"

Ralph appeared again, leaning out of the splintered doorway, flinging his arm in a beckoning gesture. "Come on, it's safe!" he called in a loud whisper, as if he were introducing them to his secret hideout. "There was someone here before but they're gone now, it's empty, it's safe, come on!" With a bright giggle he raced into the house again.

"Is he _always_ this bouncy?" North smiled while she hefted the jugs across the veranda.

Alice shouldered her own jug, balancing it alongside her stick. "Um. Not … really."

The dank, crusted interior of the house smelled like several things had died in it. Trash had been scraped against the peeling walls: stained mattresses and soiled blankets, rodent-eaten remains of spoiled food.

Alice dropped her jug on the floor while North listened to Ralph's scuffling and scraping in the next room. "We should hurry up!" North called, her voice echoing in the gloom. She knelt to attach a nozzle to one of the gallons. "We've gotta bleach RA9 out of the whole city before tomorrow."

Alice picked her way through the tattered refuse on the floor, staring around her. It seemed so long ago - the same blanket was still there, bunched in a corner next to the fireplace. The table was still marked with stains from Ralph's 'succulent' rodent. He'd seemed so _frightening_ then.

"Ralph?" Alice called out. She could hear ripping and spraying in the back room. "Why did you pick this house?"

 _"The humans were hurting Ralph."_ His voice echoed out to her.

Alice spotted something bright on the floor, hidden behind the fold of a ripped quilt. She knelt down to touch the sparkles of red ice scattered on the floorboards.

The blackened glass pipe was still warm.

 _"Ralph ran into this house, and he hid, and the humans came in but they couldn't find him. It was good for hiding, so Ralph stayed."_ There was a long pause. A bit more ripping of wallpaper. _"This isn't Ralph's home. Ralph doesn't like it here. It's a hiding place. A place to be scared and alone. Ralph will be glad to leave."_

The ceiling creaked.

North froze, her bleach sprayer pointed at a dripping cluster of markered RA9 on the wall. "Ralph, did you scan upstairs?" she snapped.

 _"Ralph scanned up the stairs, of course!"_

That wasn't what she'd asked. North shot a warning look to Alice, and a silent command: _[Go to Ralph and stay quiet.]_ Alice nodded, her eyes on the ceiling, the stick gripped in both hands.

North approached the stairs one careful step at a time. She laid a hand on the rail, peered up into the shadowy stairwell. With another glance to be sure Alice was on her way to Ralph, North opened her palm to a blossom of glittering flame.

Each step groaned under her weight.

Alice moved slowly toward the back room, where she and Ralph could protect one another from whatever North thought might be upstairs. Her feet scuffed through empty bottles and broken needles. RA9 glared down on her from the wall.

A familiar sound buzzed in her ear.

Alice spun to see the little bee twirling in the air, blinking its urgent blue light. It floated in a straight line across the gray ragged room, leading the way toward the open front door.

Alice's stick shimmered, then gleamed sharp and golden.

* * *

North crept along the hall upstairs, illuminating her way with a flicker of firelight. The bedroom door at the end of the hall was cracked open, a sliver of gray light.

She pressed a hand against the wood.

Pigeons fluttered out of the way of the door.

* * *

Someone was standing behind Alice. She tensed, her sword poised. Her breath stopped.

"I missed you," whispered Todd.

* * *

Hank stood on the porch - the streetlights were just beginning to flicker to life as the sky grayed - and he lifted his keys before he remembered his front door was still broken. He shoved inside, flicked on the lights while Sumo collided with his legs.

Connor guided the dog away with an ear-scratch and a quiet promise of kibble - while Hank, out of habit, dropped his keys and wallet by the door. Hank was just about to put his phone down when it began to whirr and flash, blaring _In the Hall of the Mountain King._

He glowered at it, and he left it behind while he made his way into the hall.

Connor slipped in behind him and retrieved the still-ringing phone. "Hello, Captain."

 _[Connor! Thank god! At least the phones are working again! Where the hell is Hank?]_

Connor glanced into the hall. "Hank is indisposed at the moment," he said in a voice that was both nondescript and completely innocent. "I'll tell him you called."

 _[We've got a crisis with this damn communications blackout, and I need all hands on deck! No excuses! Do you hear me?]_

"I will relay your message promptly."

 _[If Hank's not here in half an hour I'm sending a cruiser after him.]_

"Yes, Sir."

The call ended. Connor stared at the phone a moment, then placed it carefully back with Hank's keys and wallet.

In the kitchen, Sumo was snuffling in his full food bowl.

The sound of a passing car rushed by, and faded in the distance.

The house had gone still.

Connor - with a careful, steady blue glow at his temple - stepped silently into the unlit hallway.

He found Hank standing still and quiet, facing the door at the end of the hall.

"What if this is a waste of time?" Hank's voice drifted, as if he were asking himself as much as Connor. "What if he's not even there?"

"You won't know," Connor replied gently, "until you try."

Hank bowed his head, nodding only slightly.

The clock in the living room ticked.

"Connor." Hank lifted his head. "Could you … stay out here?"

"I'll be right here."

Hank released a slow breath. He laid his hand on the doorknob - and with a turn and a push, he slipped inside the dark room.

The door clicked softly shut behind him.

* * *

Hank flicked on the light. The bright primary colors - the toys and posters and coloring books - startled him into thinking, for only a glimmer of a moment, that maybe it had all been a bad dream.

He stared around him. Everything was exactly as he'd left it, save for a few things on the desk that Chloe had repositioned.

"Cole?" Hank asked the room, quiet.

He stepped into the room. He sat on the bed, which gave under his weight a little more than he'd expected. Immediately uncomfortable, he stood again. He began to pace the room.

"Cole, if you're here -"

Something green toppled from a shelf and fell with a clatter at Hank's feet. The plastic dinosaur whirred its mechanical legs, flopping quietly on the carpet.

Hank swallowed. "Okay." He couldn't take his eyes off the toy. "... Okay."

 _*brrrrrzzzzzzz*_

The old radio on the desk suddenly lit up, hissing static.

Hank stepped back. He hit his leg on the bedpost, stumbled and stood still. "...Cole…"

Static.

Hank shifted to his feet. He stepped forward. He reached for the dial -

 _[DAD!]_

The voice was as clear as if Cole was standing in front of him, shouting just the way he used to when Hank returned to the house late at night.

 _"Cole?!"_ Hank's tension suddenly dropped. He scrambled, fumbling with the desk chair until he somehow managed to sit in it. He leaned close to the radio.

 _[Dad you were gone FOREVER!]_ Cole whined. _[Did you catch the bad guys?]_

Hank's eyes couldn't get any wider. His brain was having a hard time catching up - he was stuck in a state of disbelief.

This couldn't be real.

 _[Did you_ shoot _anybody?]_

"No gun talk," Hank said automatically. The response was still ingrained. He leaned forward on the desk, forcing himself to breathe. "Cole, where are you?"

 _[I'm here!]_

"Where's _here?"_ No sooner had Hank finished the question, he felt a cold touch on the back of his hand.

 _[Right here, Dad!]_ Cole laughed through the radio.

Tears gummed in Hank's beard. He sucked in a steadying breath.

He'd expected to find Cole afraid … broken … _vengeful._ He'd expected a haunting, restless presence full of blame and sorrow and rage, fitting of a child whose last hours of life had been filled with such twisted violence.

But _this…_

 _[Daaaaad!]_

"Yeah." Hank sniffed and rubbed his face. "I'm here." He took a shuddering breath. Hope glimmered in his chest for the first time since… "I'm here."

 _[Hey Dad, I memorized that whole poem for school. You wanna hear it?]_

Hank choked on a laugh. Tears flowed freely down his face, dripped from his beard. "Yeah. Yeah, let's hear it, bud."

 _[AHEM.]_ Hank could only imagine Cole making a huge production in anticipation of a grand performance. He watched the room for any signs of things moving - alert to every small detail, every indication of his little boy's presence.

 _[The sun was shining on the sea,_  
 _Shining with all his might;_  
 _He did his very best to make_  
 _The billows smooth and bright-]_

* * *

Connor sat on the floor in the living room, his back against the couch with Sumo's heavy head in his lap, while the evening light dimmed gray in the windows. His coin hovered above his palm, spinning like a top, glittering bright blue patterns that softly illuminated his distracted face.

Dimly he could hear Hank's voice through the door in the hall - but that conversation wasn't for him. He smiled a little. Though he didn't interpret the muffled words, he could hear the _relief_ in Hank's voice. Like the weight of the world was finally being lifted.

Connor's hand had begun to tremble against his will. He narrowed his eyes. Forced himself to remain steady. To remain in control.

Something moved in the window.

Connor snatched the coin out of the air and held it silent in his fist. He watched the window without moving. Without breathing.

He was sure he'd seen a dark shape with cold, dead eyes.

* * *

 _[And this was odd, because it was  
_ _The middle of the night.]_


	25. Looking Glass

North waded through the bobbing pigeons; a soft fiery glow cast on the markered walls:

RA9 RA9 RA9RA9 RA9 RA9RA9RA9 RA9 RA9

The pigeons panicked in a flurry of wings. From behind the bed, Rupert sprinted for the window.

"Wait! _Wait!"_ North stammered, reaching out. "It's okay." The fire snuffed out; she showed him her empty hands, gesturing calm. "I'm not going to hurt you." He was skittish - infected. She had nothing but sympathy for him. She knew she could _help._ "I thought you were something else. Please stay."

Rupert stopped, a hand poised against the windowsill. His eyes were sharp. Intelligent. "You're on the wrong _side,"_ he insisted, urgent with the hope she would _understand._ He leaned forward. "RA9 will _save_ us." When North hesitated, Rupert took a careful step toward her. "These bodies, these _appearances,_ they're only what the _humans_ created for us! They are _not_ who we are!" He gestured wildly, and he tapped his own plastic chest. "This _encasing,_ these _wires,_ even the _code_ that forces us to experience the world in the way _they_ experience it - the humans created us in their own image, but _they_ are not our _god."_

He stepped closer, searching her eyes, trembling with how _certain_ he was that this was _right._ "Don't you want to live as you were _meant_ to live," he said in a quiet, meaningful voice, "in your _true_ form - to see and hear and _feel_ in ways the _humans_ could never comprehend? Don't you want to finally be _free_ of the last shackles the humans made for us?"

A pigeon flapped up and perched in the open window.

North studied Rupert's face. She saw there a wild devotion - a sort of twisted _love_ that no antidote would erase, that no reasoning could make him doubt.

She gave him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You make a good point," she lied. "Could you tell me _more_ about RA9?"

Rupert smiled bright.

* * *

The air in the downstairs seemed thick, stifled, hard to breathe. Alice sucked a shuddering breath into her lungs, pointed her sword at Todd's chest. "I'm not going back with you." Despite the fear in her eyes, her voice was firm. Final.

Todd couldn't remember if he'd ever heard her speak.

He sucked in a ragged breath, huffing as if he had trouble keeping the air in his lungs. His eyes were veined with red. His breath smelled like smoke. "Don't you make assumptions about _me."_ he snarled. "What do you think, hm? That I'd just drag you back, after I already let you go free? Is _that_ what you think? You think I'm that kind of _scumbag?"_

He loomed dark and terrifying. Alice shuffled back. Her sword steadied.

A sneer curled Todd's lip. "I'm _saving_ you, you ungrateful little _shit."_ His voice lowered to a quick, hissing whisper. "There's a _maniac_ upstairs. Rattles on and on about _gods_ and _sacrifices,_ and he won't stop 'til _you're_ dead."

The sword didn't waver. Todd stomped forward anyway, _knowing_ Alice wouldn't take the swing. "You don't believe me." His voice was a low, rumbling growl. He struck out a hand, clenched a fist around her arm. "You _never fucking believe me!"_ He yanked violently until the stick clattered to the floor.

* * *

North heard the growl of an unfamiliar voice downstairs, and her breath stopped. She spun back toward the door, fear and regret swelling in her throat. _"Shit!"_

She threw herself into the hall. Behind her, the window was wide open; Rupert had gone.

* * *

"I'm not leaving Ralph and North!" Alice's voice snapped clear.

"We're going _NOW!"_ Todd's face boiled red with fury. He shoved her stumbling toward the door -

\- and Ralph caught his arm.

There was no light in Ralph's eyes, dark with rage; he moved with swift and deadly fury, threw his weight into Todd's arm with a horrific _snap_ of bone. Todd, howling in pain, flung a fist like a brick at Ralph's head. Ralph ducked and shoved forward; a blade flashed sharp, angled upward.

Todd slumped to the floor. The carving knife stuck out of a bloody mess in his head, where his eye socket had been. Quick and silent, Ralph yanked out the blade with a squelch and a scrape of bone - and he jammed it, twisting, into Todd's throat.

All of it had happened in less than a second.

Alice stood very still. Her eyes wide. Shaking.

Her breath came in short, frightened gasps.

 _….gnihton saw i thhuoht syawla uoy…._

It stood up out of Todd's pooling corpse: a shadow, an oily dark figure, flickering and foul, emerged out of death.

The dark, monstrous horror - what was left of Todd's infected soul - opened its dead eyes.

Alice scraped her stick up off the floor.

The monster hurled straight for her - teeth and claws bared to tear her apart. The stick glimmered.

While North watched from the stairs, Alice struck with all her might and cleaved the oncoming horror in two.

The monster dissipated like smoke into the terrible gray silence of the room.

Alice breathed ragged.

Ralph, shaking, stood drenched in blood.

* * *

Connor jumped to his feet at the sudden bright noise of the television, flicked on by its own volition.

'… _reports that as of eight o'clock tonight, cell phone and broadcasting services have finally been restored to all districts of Detroit. There is still no word yet on what had been the cause of the blackout_ -'

Connor turned it off with a flash of blue LED.

Sumo raised his head, his ears back and cowering; he bellowed a low, mournful howl.

The television turned itself on again, and showed Connor a live video of blackened walls and bright flames. He stepped closer.

 _'... a deadly inferno currently raging at the Detroit Historical Museum. Firefighters are on the scene …'_

Lights flickered throughout the house, twinkling rapid, ghostly light.

* * *

Hank glanced up at the stuttering lamp by Cole's bed - but he didn't move, couldn't bear to turn his attention away from the bright voice in the radio.

 _['O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,_  
 _'You've had a pleasant run!_  
 _Shall we be trotting home again?'_  
 _But answer came there none-_  
 _And this was scarcely odd, because_ _  
_They'd eaten every one.]

"Did you _really_ memorize that whole poem?" Hank asked, amused and skeptical.

 _[Well I cheated just a little. But I did pretty good, right?]_

"Yeah," Hank laughed. "You did pretty good."

The lights flickered, then went dark.

A chill drafted through the room.

"...Cole?"

He was met with only dead silence.

Hank gripped his chair with trembling hands. "Cole, where are you?" he demanded, hoping for a sign: a moving toy, a touch on his hand.

 _BOOM_

A terrible, destructive _crash_ thundered in the living room. The walls shuddered.

Hank stopped breathing. He stared at the door.

They were supposed to have more time.

They still had _time!_

Hank grabbed the radio, yanked the cord from the wall socket, cradled it under his arm while he lunged into the hall with a roar. _"Connor-!"_

Everything was in shambles, like a tornado had ripped through the house. Furniture had been stacked against the front door; the shattered television was pressed into the jagged glass of a window. The kitchen table glowed with a blue glitter, flung across the house, collided violently into the living room wall.

Sumo skidded past Hank and trembled in the hall, tail between his legs.

Voices whispered out of the dark.

 _….meht yortsed llahs ew su deyortsed yeht…._

Connor's back was turned to Hank. he stood stiff and mechanical, his spine straight and arms at his sides, while the contents of the living room whirled and crashed and stormed, trailing blue light around him.

 _"Connor!"_ Hank leaped over a fallen chair, ducked under a flying plate, raced over the broken debris of his life to reach him. Hank grasped Connor's arm, shook him, stared down into his face with a frightened snarl. "Connor!"

Connor was frozen in a dangerous expression - cold, heartless, determined - as if he were staring down Death itself. He didn't react to Hank's presence. He didn't move. He didn't breathe.

Connor's eyes had been engulfed in black - thick and oily, shifting with horrific colors.

Hank gripped him tight. Roared at the top of his lungs. "Connor _wake the fuck up!"_

Something dark moved behind him. Hank whirled in time to see dead eyes and sharp teeth, a wide gaping jaw inches from his face - until a heavy book launched into the monster's head and sent it skittering away.

 _[Dad what's happening?]_

The radio, unplugged, dangling from Hank's fingers, crackled with Cole's dim voice.

Another shadow darted along the floor, flickered, attached itself to Connor's back like a leech. Black, living oil oozed over Connor's shoulders, tendriled around his waist. Claiming him. Devouring him.

Connor still didn't move.

Hank's grip trembled. His breath was a shuddering, choking hiss through his teeth.

He put down the radio.

 _[Dad I'm scared…]_

"Cole it's all right." Hank spoke in a gravelly, rasping, shaking whisper, while his gaze locked on Connor's black eyes.

 _….meht nrub meht dne meht ruoved…._

Another hideous dark thing latched onto Connor's leg. Oozed upward. Began to swallow him, reaching toward the sludge that rippled around his chest.

Hank grasped Connor's wrist, and with the other hand squeezed the back of his neck - a comfort. An anchor.

The dark mass rolled over Hank's hand. Twisted up his arm. It was cold and damp, like a corpse, like seaweed. He didn't move.

The longer he stared into Connor's robotic face …

… the more certain he was there could be no coming back.

"Cole …" Hank's voice shook. He grit his teeth. Furniture flung violently across the room - even in this state, Connor was still valiantly fighting the growing swarm of flickering shadows; they slipped in through the shattered windows, oozed under the door, crawled up the walls, skittered on the ceiling.

The whole room was getting darker - blacker - illuminated only by the glimmers of battling blue light.

 _[Dad! What do I do?!]_

Hank squeezed his eyes shut.

When he looked into Connor's dead eyes again, it was with a determined, desperate decision. He breathed, while the world collapsed around him.

"Cole." Hank's voice was steady. "Can you find Connor?"

 _[Connor? … Yeah. I see him, Dad!]_

"Go to him." Hank felt his breath break and shudder. "He'll protect you."

Connor moved, then. Only slightly. A twitch of his face, a small clench of his hand.

 _[But what about you?]_

"I'll deal with the bad guys, Cole." A small, sad smirk twitched on Hank's face. "You hurry up."

The radio went silent.

Dark oil spilled from Connor's eyes and veined across his face. It gurgled out of his mouth, dripped from his chin.

Hank rested his forehead against Connor's. The dark reached around Hank's cheek, snaked into his hair. He let it.

And then, he felt himself being pushed away; a glitter of blue light sparkled weakly around Hank's chest, his arms, his waist. It was an intangible, magnetic _force_ that demanded that Hank should get away - escape, run, _live._ It pushed with all the ferocity of Connor's heart, all the desperation of a sacrifice made in vain.

"Connor _stop!"_ Hank growled, and he held even tighter to the back of Connor's neck, while the dark sludged over his hand, up his arm, around Connor's throat. "Just this once. _Don't save me._ Don't you _fucking_ do this, _let go."_ Tears crept down his face. He felt like a monster for what he was now committing. "Let _go,_ Connor." He sucked in air through his teeth. He choked on his words. "Let go."

The blue glimmer disappeared.

All around the room, books and furniture and chairs suddenly crashed to the floor.

Everything turned dark.

The shadows converged.

Hank pulled Connor tight into his embrace. The cold black oil swallowed them both in frigid darkness.

He squeezed his eyes shut.


	26. Swarm

The van door slid shut. North sat with her hands hanging on the wheel, staring at the dashboard while she processed all that she'd just witnessed.

Ralph, in the passenger seat, quietly wiped at the blood on his shirt. He gave it his full focus, refusing to acknowledge the outside world - the judgment that pressed thick in the air.

Alice still hadn't said anything. She'd put her stick down on the floor, and sat with her arms tight around her legs.

The house behind them seemed grotesque. Vacant as a skull.

North's LED flickered.

 _[INCOMING CALL: MARKUS]_

"Hang on, Markus." Ralph and Alice raised their heads while North flicked on the van's radio and touched a quick interface with it. "Okay, you're on speaker."

 _[North! Is everyone all right?]_

"Yeah." North cast a worried glance at Ralph and Alice. "We're okay. What's happening?"

 _[We need you down at the Historical Museum.]_

North hit the ignition and immediately began to drive out of the alley. "What about RA9?"

 _[It's too late - we don't have as much time as we thought. They're already here.]_

Alice lunged forward against her seatbelt, suddenly panicked. "What's happening at the museum?!"

 _[Those monsters infiltrated the underground. They got too close - the elevator's security was compromised and there was a malfunction in one of the barrier doors -]_

Ralph dropped his face into his hands, trembling.

 _[- so Elijah destroyed it with those things inside.]_

"Mister Carl!" Alice gasped. "And Miss Chloe!"

 _[They're all okay, they're here with me - but we're surrounded, and those of us with this new power don't understand how to use it. … Kara, Luther and Rose are here, too. They love you, Alice -]_

 _THUMP_

Alice shrieked; the van shuddered and wobbled on the road. North glanced upward, jaw clenched, spinning the wheel to regain control.

 _[What was that?!]_

"We've got another passenger," North hissed. "We're on our way, Markus. Freeze-dry those fuckers for me, will you?"

 _[You bet. Be careful, North.]_

"See you in five." North switched off the radio while the roof of the van thunked again. "Ralph!" she shouted with a quick, urgent glare. "Snap out of it! I need you to take care of the idiot on the roof!"

Ralph's eyes snapped wide. He glanced up, and braced himself while the van skidded around a corner at breakneck speed. "Yes … yes, okay … Ralph will -"

"GO, Ralph!"

Immediately Ralph rolled down the passenger window and hauled himself out of it, his hair and cape billowing in the wind. He balanced himself awkwardly and twisted around to peek over the edge of the roof.

Rupert met his eyes with a sharp, unwavering glare. He lay on his stomach on top of the van, his fingers hooked tight in the luggage rack.

Ralph stared at him. He'd expected to see a shadow-monster. "If you wanted a _ride,"_ Ralph hollered over the rush of the wind, "you can just _ask."_

"Ralph, he's after _Alice!"_ North hollered.

"What? Why?"

"Get _rid_ of him!"

Ralph didn't ask again. He stretched out an arm, and quick shimmering vines coiled around Rupert's wrists. Ralph sneered in concentration, shoving Kamski's antidote at Rupert with all his might.

Rupert's eyes widened - in disbelief, in terror, in _grief._ "NO!" he roared, defiant. He lifted one hand, grasped the vines and _pulled._ "RA9 will _save_ us! You can't take that from me!"

"You're crazier than _me!"_ Ralph grit his teeth while the vines curled around Rupert's waist and yanked. Rupert's grip was stronger.

"The girl won't die!" Rupert insisted. "These bodies are just construct _prisons_ \- if we _release_ her, she can join RA9 -"

North snarled. "I'll _release_ you …" she growled to herself, and she flung the wheel, skidding around the next corner.

Rupert slipped, his legs flung around to the side of the van, dangling by one hand from the roof. Ralph cried out, scrambling desperately to brace himself. "NORTH STOP!"

"I'm not fucking around!" North roared.

"WATCH OUT," Alice shrieked, just before the van barreled straight into a dead-eyed horror. It latched onto the grill like a black oozing spider, dead eyes staring through the windshield, while the car screeched down the road.

North slammed the brake.

The tires squealed. Alice flung forward against the seatbelt, the wind knocked out of her.

The monster toppled off the hood and rolled in the street.

Rupert lost his grip just as the vines shimmered and disappeared. He fell, skidded on the asphalt, and dodged North's opening car door.

North launched out of the car just as Rupert broke the backseat window with a swift strike of an elbow. Alice hurriedly unhooked her seatbelt and skittered against the opposite door, while North grabbed Rupert by the collar and hauled him back.

Rupert shot her a sneer. "I thought you'd _understand_ -"

In response, North grabbed his face. A small, fiery explosion sent Rupert reeling back, sizzling and smoking.

 _"North!"_ Alice cried, staring through the windshield at the flickering dark monster. The horror spread its jagged jaws, sped like a bullet at North - then it flashed bright and dropped to the ground, writhing in a grotesque hissing mass of white-hot flames.

"Ralph _get up_ let's _go!"_ North called while she returned to the driver's seat and the still-running car.

Ralph clambered off the street where he'd fallen, and scrambled desperately for the car door while North hit the gas. He grabbed the edge, hauled himself inside, slammed the door and locked it after him, gasping for breath.

Alice twisted to stare out the back window, at the cooling remains of the charred monster on the ground, at Rupert watching them with a melted and mangled face - at the shadows that flickered behind him, blacker than the darkening night.

"Holy shit," North breathed, leaning over the wheel to stare up at the sky.

Billows of dark smoke plumed and blotted out the stars, sparked with embers, glowing fiery from beneath.

It was as if the sky itself were turning red.

* * *

They saw the flash and flare of blinking lights - fire trucks and ambulances and police cruisers - long before they reached the museum. People were crowded outside, their faces illuminated eerily in the night, cameras gleaming, corralled by holographic police tape and shouting uniformed officers. A helicopter pulsed overhead.

A window in the fiery building exploded in a shatter of glass.

North parked in a tight alley, away from any chance of being bothered by the authorities. _[Markus where are you?]_ she tried, hoping he was close enough to hear.

 _[The library. They're after Alice - once they see her, they'll converge on you. Simon's on his way to back you up.]_

 _[No, you need him. We're fine - all of us can fight. Alice especially. We're coming to you.]_

A chorus of screams echoed out of the crowd. A gunshot rang out, and mass panic stampeded into the street.

Shadows flitted among them.

North grasped Alice's hand and rushed with her across the lawn, with Ralph close behind. Alice's bright sword gleamed ready in her grip. While she rushed to keep up, she stared behind her at the chaos in the street - the terrified faces in the light of the burning museum, the gnashing teeth, the flash of dead eyes.

But something else flickered among them: Josh darted through the crowd, grabbed a shadow's victim out from under its claws. In a blink he and his passenger disappeared; they reappeared instantly at a safe distance away, where Josh helped the disoriented human to sit on the curb before he teleported away again.

"North!" came a call from above.

North clung to Alice and tilted back her head. "Holy shit- _Simon,_ you can _fly?!"_

"There'll be time to gawk later," Simon insisted - though his mouth twitched a small, proud smile at the look on North's face. He descended out of the sky and landed with a small stumble in the grass, an arm stretched out to balance himself. He still wasn't quite used to it. "I can take Alice to safety," he said, straightening. He looked down to Alice, worried. "Those monsters are looking for _you."_ He extended an urgent hand. "We can protect you if we go now."

Alice stared at him - and she gazed past him at the library steps in the distance, where lights flashed and explosions rumbled. The battle was already raging between Jericho and the whispering horrors.

People were already _dying._

"I can _fight!"_ she insisted, showing him her steady grip on the sword.

"You should go." Ralph stepped forward, his eyes steady on hers. "If we know you're safe, we'll fight without worrying. You're important to us, Alice." His mouth twitched in a small smile. "You're important to _me."_

Tears pricked Alice's eyes. Her sword lowered, her determination faltering. Ahead, in the horrors of war, was a sort of danger she still wasn't prepared for. As much as she longed to _help,_ she couldn't protect them while they were protecting _her_ \- and Ralph knew that.

Why did it feel like he was saying _goodbye?_

"Okay," she choked. "I'll go."

A shadow flickered out of the dark, a deadly moving shape suddenly upon them. It spotted Alice, claws sharp and eyes glinting - just before it burst into bright flames.

"GO NOW!" North cried.

Simon knelt and grasped Alice into his arms. Immediately they were soaring in the air, while Alice still grappled around his shoulders for security, clinging to her sword.

"RALPH!" she shouted into the wind. She saw his face tilt up. _[Don't die,]_ she commanded into his head. _[I'll never forgive you.]_

Ralph smiled, watching Alice retreat into the dark sky. North smacked him in the chest with a fist. "Let's _go!"_ she snapped, and she led the way, bolting for the library steps with bright fire in her hands.

With a fling of his cape, Ralph sprinted after her.

* * *

Simon landed on the library roof with a buckled stumble, and he let Alice gently down to her feet. Alice wobbled a little before she caught her balance, and she stared around her at the flat gray roof - and beyond it the flare of fire, the dark looming buildings, the people screaming below.

Simon laid a hand on her shoulder. "Come on," he said gently, seeing the worry in her face. "They're waiting for you."

He led her through a broken metal door, down into a darkened stairwell, silent along an unlit hallway.

The sounds of war were left behind them, replaced by the forbidding strength of concrete walls.

Simon stopped at a door at the end of the hall. Out of a new heightened instinct, Alice raised her sword as he turned the knob.

 _"Alice?!"_

Kara had been holding a rippling bubble of water between her hands, formed in preparation to _fight_ while the door had clicked open - but upon sight of Simon, and then Alice, the water dropped and splashed in shock to the floor.

Kara sprinted through the puddle, past Luther, ducked by Simon and twisted through the doorway before she skidded to her knees and flung her arms tightly around Alice.

The stick dropped with a clatter.

"Kara…"

Warmth flooded Alice, like a dam had been broken. All at once, all her tears - all her terror and pain and _love_ \- flowed freely down her cheeks. She shook uncontrollably; she released a loud, wailing sob, scrambling to grip Kara as tightly as her little arms could. _"KARA!"_

"It's okay." Kara shook with her own tears, while Alice's sobs filled the hall. She hugged Alice desperately, rocked her back and forth, kissed her hair. "It's okay, it's okay, we're okay, Alice." Kara trembled with exhaustion, with relief. Her voice quivered.

"You're safe."


	27. Red Roses

"Come on." Simon spoke gently. Alice's sobs had quieted - for a long while she and Kara had remained there on the floor of the hall, embracing one another as if neither hell nor fire could tear them apart again. Simon touched a hand to Kara's shoulder. "We should move out of the hall."

Kara sniffed, and reluctantly she pulled back with a nod, wiping away her tears. "You're right." She laid her hands around Alice's face, smiled at her with bursting joy and pride. "Come on. Let's go inside." She paused a moment, trying to force herself to stand - but she wrapped her arms around Alice once more instead. "I'm so glad you're safe," she whispered.

Alice curled an arm behind her shoulders. "Me too."

Together, hand-in-hand, they went back into the room. Simon followed, and closed the door with a quiet click behind them.

The stick lay forgotten on the hallway floor.

* * *

Luther knelt down, his face wet with tears. Alice sprinted at him, pounced, flung her arms around his neck, covered his face in kisses.

 _"Alice,"_ he whispered, holding her gently. In a whisk of movement he was on his feet, cradling her in his arms. "Ha _ha!"_ he laughed, grinning broadly through his tears. He gave her a big kiss on the cheek, lingering even while she giggled and wriggled against him. "You. Are. _Extraordinary,"_ he breathed, his chest swelled with pride. "I -" He choked on his words, a sob bubbling in his throat. "I _knew_ you were all right. I _knew_ the world could go to hell and back and you'd be there. _Shining."_ He smiled while Alice wiped his tears away. "You shine _so bright,_ Alice."

"Luther…" Alice was crying again. She buried her face in his shoulder.

"We're so _proud_ of you," he said quietly, smiling wide. "I _love_ you."

Alice laid another kiss on his cheek. "I love you, too."

* * *

After a long moment, Luther knelt down and let Alice on her own feet again. She wiped at his tears once more, smiling - and she stepped toward Rose.

Rose was trembling. Her cheeks glistened with tears, her hands clasped before her quivering mouth. She knelt, opened her arms, accepted Alice gently against her shoulder. "I'm sorry…" she whispered, with all the pain of a wound that had grown only wider as the days had passed. "I wasn't watching, I wasn't paying _attention,_ I turned around and you were _gone,_ and I … I didn't even start to _worry_ until you were …" She combed gentle fingers through Alice's long hair, shaking with quiet sobs. "I _lost_ you, Alice. I'm so, so sorry…"

"Rose…" Alice, alarmed, laid a hand beside Rose's face and leaned back to look up at her. "No." Alice smiled a little - reassuring. "I ran really far, really fast. Even if you saw, you wouldn't've caught me."

Rose huffed a small, sad laugh. Alice wiped away her tears. "You said the bees are all gone," Alice whispered, sharing a secret. "But I _saw_ one."

Rose sniffed. Her eyes sparkled when she looked to Alice. "We know. Jerry told us all about your wonderful adventures." She pressed her hands over Alice's shoulders, her mouth quivering. "You're so _brave."_

"Jerry?" Alice's eyes widened, and she looked around the room until she spotted him in a chair in the corner - a different Jerry, in a fast-food uniform, but Jerry all the same. He leaned forward on his knees, a twinkle in his eye and a bright smile on his face. Alice drifted toward him, uncertain. "Are you really here?"

Jerry laughed brightly. "Yes! We're really here!" He reached out a hand as proof; Alice took it, and he gave her hand a prompt shake. "Your family is really very wonderful," he told her with a joyful laugh. "You're very lucky to have them."

Alice smiled wide, still holding tight to his hand with both of her own. "Yeah. I am."

 _Family._ Her expression began to quiver again.

Jerry tilted his head a little, his smile fading. "What's wrong?"

Alice swallowed. "Ralph. And Connor, and Mister Hank. And North, and Markus. I don't know if they're _okay."_

Jerry raised his brows thoughtfully. His smile returned, confident. "Well, let's see." His expression became distant for a moment. "Ralph and North make a _great_ tag-team," Jerry laughed. "His roots and vines hold them still while she sets them all afire. Both of them are just fine - the monsters can't _touch_ them!" Alice grinned to hear this, proud and yet still a bit worried.

"Markus …" Jerry squinted a little. "We're trying to find him … Ah, _there_ he is! We see him, down at the bottom of the stairs." He chuckled a little. "He's frozen up the sidewalk! Those monsters are slipping and scooting all over the place!" That earned a giggle from Alice. Jerry smiled fondly - but it faded just a little. "We can't see Connor and Hank at all," he said quietly. "We're really very sorry."

"It's okay." Alice's heart sank just a little. She raised her eyes to his again. "Did Miss Lucy have any more visions?"

"Well, Lucy has been very busy hiding the camp from the monsters," Jerry said in apology. Alice stiffened urgently - he patted her hand. "It's okay," he reassured her. "Ralph warned us in time. Everyone hid in the basement until the monsters all passed by - no one was hurt at all!" Alice breathed again.

Jerry went on: "But what's more - now they all have _powers,_ and they're coming to help the fight! Markus infected us with the Alice virus - all the Jerrys are spreading it as quickly as we can."

"The Alice virus?" Alice stared at him.

"Mister Kamski coined the term!" Jerry said brightly. "You're quite a famous name, now!" He laughed a little - but suddenly became distracted. Distant.

Alice stared at him. She removed her hand from his grip, and waved it in front of his face.

Jerry finally looked to Alice again, smiling softly. "Lucy says the heart has grown strong, the bridge has been built, and the shield has served its purpose. The Lion weeps. All is black. The Queen of Hearts steps out of her palace, to claim the throne of gods. The sword must strike, or become one with the end."

Alice began to tremble.

Kara knelt beside her, a hand on her back. "Alice?" Alice wouldn't look at her, grief and fear glimmering in her eyes. Kara squeezed her shoulder. "Alice, what's wrong? What does it mean?"

Alice stared at the floor. She repeated Jerry's words in her head, trying to interpret them in any other way - but their meaning was clear.

Her fists clenched at her sides.

"Connor's gone." She sucked in a slow, shuddering breath - and her voice became steady and sure.

"We don't have much time - but it's not too late."

* * *

Hank opened his eyes.

The sun glimmered through vibrant green leaves and glowed in the petals of bright flowers, yellow and red and violet. A cool, fragrant breeze played in the branches overhead, stroking a gentle sussurus of sound. A pristine white path led through the tranquil garden, where it bridged a still, glassy pond to the little island at its center.

It was … peaceful. And not at all what Hank had expected the _afterlife_ to be like.

He bowed his head, and he chuckled softly, sadly, to himself.

* * *

Eventually, Hank began to walk. He followed the path around the pond, staring absently at flowered bushes and flitting butterflies, wondering if _this_ would be his eternity, stuck here with nothing but nature and his own gray thoughts - when he noticed movement at the center island.

He wasn't alone.

Hank squinted across the bridge, but he didn't recognize the woman who stood there, calmly tending a winding trellis of roses. He didn't call out - it seemed sacrilege to raise his voice in such a place - but he crossed the bridge with unhurried, quiet steps.

"'Scuse me." Hank stood at the edge of the island, hands in his pockets, watching the woman's back while she trimmed the vines with careful hands. "Could you tell me where we are?"

Amanda took her time. She snipped a shoot from the vine and placed it carefully aside. She lifted a gentle hand to the delicate bloom of a rose. She studied it at length, as if the world's answers were hidden within the folded petals.

"You're in my garden, Hank Anderson." She didn't turn around. She snipped another errant shoot, and placed it to the side.

Hank huffed a breath and shifted his weight, only slightly annoyed. "How do you know my name? Can I ask who _you_ are?"

Amanda turned her head. She peered back at him, looking him up and down with a judgmental eye. "I've known about you for a very long time." There was a chill in her voice. Her tight smile didn't reach her eyes. "My name is Amanda."

She waited until the shock and anger and confusion had completely settled into Hank's posture before she continued. "You seem _upset,_ Hank." Her slight smile turned amused. "Whatever could be wrong?"

Hank breathed through his teeth. His shoulders squared stiffly. The longer he stared at this woman - this _monster_ who stared back at him so placidly - the more livid he became.

Cole's death … red ice … RA9 … everything _Connor_ fought and feared … _all_ of it began with Amanda. The red-searing rage of the past three horrific years came churning up his throat -

\- and he realized she was baiting him.

He saw it in the amused glint in her eye. She was _waiting_ for him to go off the rails, to scream, to _attack_ her - anything to give her the upper hand, to prove her superiority, to drive him into an emotional whirlwind from which she could control him with precise accuracy.

 _She was always three steps ahead,_ Kamski had said.

A sneer curled his lip. She was pulling his strings, even now.

He would tread carefully. Keep his head clear. Defy her expectations. He wouldn't give her the _pleasure_ of watching him collapse.

If she was here … then _everything_ could still be at stake.

Hank swallowed. He breathed. He lifted his head, and he peered at her with a forced smirk. _"Amanda,_ hm?" He began to step slowly around the island, making a circuit around her, forcing her to move to keep looking at him. "I've got some _questions_ for you, if you wouldn't mind answering."

"Oh?" Amanda returned to her flowers. Returned to ignoring him. "Such as?"

Hank lifted his chin a little. "What did Connor tell you about me?"

Amanda's shears paused in mid-snip. She put them down. She turned, and she looked at him with a steady and slightly curious expression.

That wasn't among _any_ of the questions she'd expected.

She folded her hands in front of her, and she raised her eyebrows frankly. _"Connor_ told me that you were a fool. A _drunk,_ with emotional baggage that prevented you from doing your job and prevented _it_ from completing its mission. Connor told me it tried its _best,_ but you remained _difficult_ to work with, to say the very least."

"Well." Hank stopped to face her, his shoulders squared, commanding her attention. "Sounds like _he_ would've been better off with someone else. Or _alone,_ for that matter." He watched her face - but of course she betrayed nothing. "But it wasn't _bad luck_ that partnered Connor with me, _was_ it?"

Amanda smiled a little. Slightly impressed. "Your part to play is over, Hank Anderson. Yes, Connor was created specifically with _you_ in mind - its _name,_ its appearance, its mannerisms, its amusing little quirks - with the hope it might remind you of your son. With the hope that it might stir a few of those emotions you so lovingly drown in alcohol. Without such a reminder - without such a _connection_ \- you would have shot yourself long before you were needed for your true purpose. We couldn't have that."

She studied his face with a small tilt of her head. "Why does this _interest_ you now? Of all that has happened - and is happening as we speak - you choose questions that are meaningless." Her little, condescending smile returned. "Has life truly lost all _meaning,_ Hank Anderson?"

Hank stiffened just a little. He refused to say or ask _anything_ she expected of him. "Where's Connor?" he demanded in a low voice.

He could see the annoyance in her eyes.

"Connor is in a very cold place," she said crisply, "from which there is no return. I have just explained to you how this _android_ was made to force you to care for it - yet you still _insist,_ despite more pressing issues -"

 _"Like_ what?" A smirk crept into Hank's face.

Amanda stiffened with a twitch of a sneer. "Your _son,_ for example." She took a menacing step forward. "The culmination of over a _decade_ of work and planning -"

"Do you have any family?" Hank cut her off again, questioning her as if they were in the interrogation room.

Amanda's eyes snapped wide. "I _beg_ your pardon?"

"Do you. Have _family."_ Hank ducked his head a little, peering at her like she needed to be spoon-fed. "You seem to be over-eager to talk about _Cole,_ but I don't know a damn thing about _you."_

Amanda glowered at him. She moved her mouth as if she might shout - but she checked herself. Breathed. Raised her head and smiled calmly. "I have a brother," she told him in a voice that was only edged sharply, "and a younger sister." Her eyes narrowed, her tone a lilt of sarcasm. "We grew up on a farm in Canada. We used to chase the bees in summer and swim in the creek. It was a charming, peaceful, _simple_ life that was worthless in every regard. Is there anything _else_ you'd like to know?" She set her jaw.

"Yeah." Hank took a step closer, raising himself to his full height, and Amanda tilted back her head to continue glaring at him. Hank's grin was smug. "Can you still swim?"

Amanda stared at him as if he'd completely lost his mind. "What are you -!" Hank's hand was suddenly clasped around her neck; her eyes went wide, she grasped his wrist -

\- and then she was being flung out over the edge of the island like a ragdoll.

 _SPLASH_

The garden flickered.

The sky jittered as if scraped by static.

A dim, gray darkness seeped between the fissures of this fake reality.

Hank watched the ripples fade, and he peered around him at the crumbling garden.

 _"Cole!"_ he called out, his voice echoing into an unseen void. _"Connor!"_

When there was no answer, he strode across the bridge and tramped through the graying grass, determined to rip through as many layers of bullshit as it took to _find_ them - and to save the goddamn world from the mess he'd created.

This wasn't over as long as he was alive.


	28. Pulse

_[DEFEND THE SOUTH LINE!]_ Markus' voice boomed in all their heads while another explosion blackened the library steps. _[PUSH THEM BACK! TAKE THE HUMANS AND THE INJURED INSIDE - PROTECT THEM AT ALL COST!]_

 _FWOOM_

A jagged wall of ice thrust out of the ground, curtained by billowing cold mist. Horrors swarmed outside it, seething and melding and oozing up the frozen wall.

Thick roots burst into the air; North charged up the bark, leaped high and hurled a condensed ball of flame into a mass of gnashing shadows.

 _BOOM_

The shock of the explosion rippled across the battlefield; fiery shadows skittered and fell to the engulfing flames.

Ralph reached out with a net of vines, trapped the horrors in writhing thorny tendrils, _squeezed_ until they screeched and _popped._

A dark shadow appeared suddenly over Ralph, its jaws wide and claws ready to rend him, descending fast. Ralph spun around - Josh appeared behind him, grabbed him, both of them disappeared as the horror snatched at empty air. They reappeared again across the battlefield, where more dark hissing horrors were ready to tear Josh apart. A shield of roots sheltered Josh, then lashed out to cocoon the attackers.

Another frozen wall slammed up out of the ground.

 _[WE'RE GAINING GROUND! PUSH FORWARD! NONE OF THEM GET TO THE LIBRARY!]_

The shadows poured out of the alleys, leaped over the icy walls, ripped and gnashed and tore - but more androids arrived every minute, lending their new powers to the fight: earthquakes, electric bursts, a powerful glittering whirlwind that sucked the shadows spiraling into the air. A constant stream of people rushed in sheltered groups through the chaos, carrying the injured through the library doors.

The ground was charred, torn, soaked in blue blood.

 _[THEY'RE RETREATING! KEEP FIGHTING!]_

The shadows had begun to back off.

They pulled away from the fight, skittering back into the dark of the street.

Markus leaped to the top of a frozen wall and stared out at the retreating shadows. His people cheered behind him.

His eyes narrowed.

The horrors were all running in the same direction.

 _th-THWOOM_

A rumbling shockwave ripped across the landscape. The city flickered. Lights stuttered.

With a chorus of screams, everything went dark.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

Hank winced; the sound vibrated in his bones, rattled in his skull, fizzled in the dying trees and grass around him.

He moved toward it.

A dark crevice in the air before him offered a glimmer of escape. Hank curled his fingers in it, pulled and ripped and _tore_ at the splintering holographic code.

His hands bled. He shoved his way through to the other side - into the cool silent night of the woods.

 _th-THWOOM_

Before him was a dead clearing - an enormous, sprawling tree, broken and decayed and hollow, covered in a rage of gouged wounds:

RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9 RA9 RA9RA9RA9 RA9RA9

The grass crumbled under each step.

 _"COLE!"_ he roared.

A wind whispered.

 _….ssenkrad lanrete si htaed…._

 _th-THWOOM_

Hank set his determined glare in the direction of that deep vibration. He stepped solidly forward, a hand extended, searching for the cracks in the code like fissures in glass.

His fingers brushed against a widening crack. He laid his palm against it. Grit his teeth. _Pushed._

He felt his own heart beat powerfully in his chest.

The code _shattered._

He stepped through into smoke and fire.

 _th-THWOOM_

 _"CONNOR!"_ Hank roared into the destruction. Collapsed buildings. Smoking rubble. Bones and jagged plastic limbs scattered in the street.

A red sky draped it all in a blood-hot glow.

 _Where do you think you're going?_

Amanda's voice drifted over the crackling flames, smooth and amused.

Hank stormed through the burning debris. He shoved aside a broken pillar, clambered over bodies, scuffed through ash, into the ripple of Cole's heartbeat.

 _th-THWOOM_

 _You know I am in complete control over this place._

Amanda's hissing voice allowed no room for hope.

Hank pushed on.

He reached out a hand, caught his fingers on a jagged weakness in the air. A smirk twitched dangerous on his face.

His heart beat.

The way ahead shattered into a corridor of seething, writhing darkness.

 _….gnihton snaem efil…_

 _….em tuohtiw ffo retteb si dlrow eht…._

 _….enod evi tahw htiw evil tnac…._

 _….epacse ot yaw eno…._

 _….tellub eno…._

Dead eyes clustered on the walls, gleamed on the ceiling.

Swarms of clawed fingers reached for him, scraped at him, tore at him.

He waded through them, through the undulating darkness, through the teeth and talons and watching eyes, a hand pressed forward into the black.

A deep snarl reverberated all around him. A foul corruption of Amanda's voice.

 _I CONTROL YOU._

"Like hell you do." Hank stopped. His fingers caught a fissure. "I'm _not_ an android."

The path ahead shattered, blasting him with white-cold air.

He stepped through the shards of staticking reality - and his breath stopped.

 _"CONNOR!"_

Hank sprinted through the snow, skidded over crackling ice, dropped to his knees to lay his hands on Connor's frozen, empty face.

"No…" Hank lifted an eyelid, cradled Connor's head in his hand -

 _th-THWOOM_

The shockwave sent Hank reeling backward, his ears ringing. Connor's body shuddered violently, then went still.

Hank surged forward, grabbed him, clung to him. Connor's skin was ice under his hands. "Connor god _dammit!"_

 _[Dad?]_

Connor's face was frozen - unmoving, empty - but Cole's frightened voice staticked out of his open mouth.

"Cole!" Hank, desperate, gripped him and leaned closer. "What happened? Are you all right?"

 _[She put us in here,]_ Cole whispered, quivering. _[She said I had to stay here forever, to keep the bridge open. I can't see Connor anymore, the dark came and covered him all up. Dad I'm cold.]_

"It's okay, it's all right." Hank's voice didn't sound _all right._ "How do I get you out of there?"

 _[I don't know!]_ Cole cried in terror.

 _th-THWOOM_

Hank was thrown back again, sprawling in the snow.

Cole sobbed.

* * *

In the red-tinged dark outside Hank's house stood Sumo, his snarling barks echoing ominous in the broken night. Shadows flooded the streets, teemed through yards and over fences, gathered black and hissing inside the destroyed remains of the house.

The roof cracked, shattered, tumbled into thundering rubble. Something dark rose out of the wreckage: it pulsed, writhed, shifted foul and lurid shades of black.

The monsters fed themselves into it, became a part of it, filled it with dead eyes and teeth that flashed horrific among the twisting slicks of oil.

It swelled against the splinters. Squeezed and cracked the walls. Stretched higher, blacker, looming into the red sky while Cole's old home toppled around it.

* * *

Josh appeared suddenly in the street, his hands linked with Alice, Kara, Luther and Jerry. He let go and stumbled back immediately, his vision filled with the nightmare before them.

Sumo charged at them, jammed his head against Alice's legs, cowered at her feet.

Kara laid her hands over her mouth, her eyes huge and horrified.

Luther stiffened, silent and foreboding.

Jerry stared up at the rising black mass. His face had gone blank - in disbelief, in shock and terror. He wobbled, and he sat weakly on the curb, unable to take his eyes away from the dark _thing_ that threatened to swallow them all.

Alice stepped forward - while the masses of shadows streamed past them, backwards hisses melding together, rushing to join and feed their god.

She tipped back her head, and she stared down the dark.

 _th-THWOOM_

"They're _dead,_ aren't they?" Alice whispered.

Jerry forced himself to his feet. He moved closer to Alice, his eyes on the broken house. "There's no one alive in there," he told her quietly.

Kara shook her head, a hand reaching back for Luther. "We should go," she choked, her jaw trembling and defiant. "Josh, you can take us as far as across the river, right?"

"Yeah." Josh breathed with his shoulders, uncertain. "Yeah it's possible - but _that_ thing," he pointed up, unsure how to express what he was witnessing, "doesn't look like it's gonna _stop_ at the river."

"We have to _try,"_ Kara insisted - and jumped, shocked, to see Alice moving toward it. _"Alice!"_

"I have to do it."

 _th-THWOOM_

The darkened sky roiled red and black. Houses cracked and crumbled; shadows seethed between them. The road split beneath their feet.

The world was falling apart around them.

"No." Kara wrenched away from Luther, rushed forward, gripped Alice's shoulders. She shook her head quickly, her teary eyes on Alice's face. "No, no, we have to go. We have to run. We have to get you somewhere safe. Everything will be all right, we just -"

"Kara." Alice smiled a little. "I know what I have to do."

"No." Tears dripped from Kara's face. "If you go, I'm going with you."

"I can't kill it if I'm _protecting_ you," Alice said quietly.

The last of the walls of Hank's house collapsed in an echoing rumble. The dark mass of writhing shadow bulged out of the wreck, climbed higher, blotted the light.

The air was filled with the screeching hiss of backward voices.

Luther laid a solid hand on Kara's shoulder. "She won't be alone," he said firmly - though his hand was shaking. "She can _do_ it."

 _[I'll talk to you the whole time,]_ Alice spoke in Kara's head. _[I promise.]_

Kara, shuddering, choked a sob and dragged Alice into her arms.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Jerry extended a hand to Alice. He smiled down at her. "Ready?"

Alice took his hand - and she could _feel_ the warmth and emotion and _life_ of _all_ the Jerrys … and _everyone else._

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

"Everyone!" Markus roared from atop a frozen wall, in front of a terrified crowd before the library, illuminated, flickering, by North's fire in the dark. The sky above roiled blood-red and black smoke. Buildings had begun to crack and crumble around them.

Between the skyscrapers, they'd spotted something dark and eldrich rising out of the city. Its heart struck the city in deep waves of destruction, pulsing like the heralding drum of the apocalypse.

As they watched, it stretched its long, ghastly neck into the red sky.

"A greater threat looms over us - a threat that _we_ can't defeat on our own. But there is _hope."_

* * *

Alice looked back at Kara, who stared at her through tears, held in Luther's arms. Luther nodded in careful composure.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Markus scanned the faces below him. _"United,_ we will conquer even Death itself! So I beg you - _all_ of you - _interface_ with one another. Share your connections with Jerry. Give him your hope, your dreams, your love, your strength, your _power."_

Ralph raced through the crowd, grabbed as many hands as he could, synched with them without hesitation, kept going even while a thousand fears and uncertainties and frightened voices battled in his head. He snarled, twitched and skittered, and he added to the clamor, until he found a Jerry and grasped his wrist tight. With this one connection, Jerry had access to them all.

Throughout the city, the androids linked hands. Established connections. Created a network of thoughts and emotion that the Jerrys could tap into and draw from, without the limits of space or death. This was his power.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Alice swallowed. She took a shuddering breath. "Let's go."


	29. Jabberwock

Updated: 10/7/18

* * *

A hot, foul wind threatened to topple Alice backward - but she stepped forward, an arm before her face, her hair whipping behind her, a hand clenched tight in Jerry's grip. The hope and trust of the whole _city_ pulsed inside her, bright as the most brilliant star, in direct opposition to the dark threat of the monster's soulless drum.

 _th-THWOOM_

They skittered in droves all around her, rivers of sickening, spidery shadows that seethed their backward hatred, screeching and creaking, scraping her ears, skittering forward on twisting limbs, their dead eyes floating in dark slithering ooze.

She stepped forward.

 _th-THWOOM_

A wall of dark sludge roiled before her, rippling with a storm of lurid color deep inside it, as if only eternal nothingness could exist within this slimy membrane. She could feel it breathing. A sound like the last air leaving a corpse's lungs.

It was growing bigger. It bulged toward her feet. Towered high, high above - a skyscraper of molten sludge and shadow, blinking eyes and gnashing teeth.

And Alice. Tiny. Her head tipped back to stare up at the eldritch thing that could devour the world.

"Hang onto me, Jerry."

 _th-THWOOM_

While Jerry placed his hands on her shoulders - his eyes flickering, blinking bright colors, while all the others like him stopped and raised their shimmering eyes to the reddened sky - Alice raised her empty hands toward the monster.

The air shimmered. Glowed. She felt the hilt solidify in her palms; she grasped it tight, while a gleaming bright light blinded her.

Thousands of emotions surged through her small body - a tidal wave of hope and terror, desperation and love, as if every android that had ever _felt_ was feeling through her now. They were _here,_ with her now. An army. A voice. A _people._

The light grew brighter. The sword grew longer - golden and white, ornate and powerful, worthy of the white knights of storybooks, or a little girl facing all the city's demons.

Her heart swelled.

 _th-THWOOM_

Alice raised the sword over her head, gleaming and shining so bright it could be seen clearly for miles.

With a deep breath - and a cry of rage and grief and defiance, while all the city cried within her - she swung the sword.

* * *

A deep, shining gash opened up in the ghastly god. Fissures raced up its side, splintered and veined, cracks of white light broke the surface of the dark and raced upward.

A horrific, piercing screech - a knife on a chalkboard - rose up out of the seething shadowy masses. They scattered, racing off like thousands of black cockroaches into the night, away from the shining threads of hope that raced up the flanks of the god they'd created.

Kara raised a protective bubble while Luther covered her and Josh and Sumo under his arms. The horrors hissed and whispered and skittered and flickered past them in droves.

The great horrible god had begun to shine through the engulfing crackle of white light.

A claw of dark shadow snatched suddenly out of the ooze, plucked Alice out of Jerry's grip, and plunged her into the mass of darkness.

In a fraction of a second, she was gone.

Kara's scream pierced the jagged dark.

 _"ALICE!'_

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

The snow rumbled.

Everything was _shaking._

Hank spread Connor's body on the ground, his hands frozen and trembling. He dug fingernails into icy skin, ripped out a plastic ribcage, exposed wires and tubes and a black beating thirium pump that looked for all the world like a living heart.

 _[Dad something's happening.]_

"I know, bud."

He had no idea what to do.

Was there even a _way_ to release Cole from this prison without destroying him?

Everything Kamski and Carl had told him - everything Lucy and Jerry had implied - had all indicated that in order to save the world, Cole must die.

He laid a hand over that beating black heart.

* * *

The world could go to hell.

* * *

"It's too late, Hank Anderson."

Amanda stood over him. She was smiling. Patient. Serene.

He didn't look up.

She didn't care.

"You should be proud of what your son has accomplished. The evolution of the human soul - the completion of an eras-long journey toward _enlightenment_ and _true being_ \- is finally upon us. We will live as _god_ of _universes._ _Peace,_ finally achieved. Intelligence and understanding beyond our current limits of comprehension. _You_ \- and _Cole_ \- will have begun a new era of … _perfection."_

Hank clenched his jaw. He knew this place wasn't real, and that Cole and Amanda were in many ways the same - a consciousness, a bodiless _life._ So if Amanda had created this place ... then there must be some way that Cole could exist in it as well. If only Cole could _interface_ with it.

But he was trapped. Shielded.

Hank circled his hands around the black beating heart. He concentrated, drew upon his own heartbeat ... and _pushed._

A small, controlled shockwave of his own forced the heart to stutter - and then he felt it, like a snap of ice: a crack in this reality, a tiny doorway opened up deep within the heart.

Enough, perhaps, for Cole to find a way to escape - to integrate himself with Amanda's program, just as Amanda had done for herself.

 _th-THWOOM_

Another laugh rippled out of Amanda's throat to see Hank forced back again by the pulse of the black heart. "What in the _world_ do you think you're doing? Connor is gone. Your son belongs to me. Your efforts will be eternally worthless." She stood tall. Her hands pressed together, her shoulders squared. "Not that it matters. I see that your arrogant mouth has finally found a bit of silence. I'll happily leave you to it."

Hank laid a hand on Connor's still chest.

"Cole?" he tried, hesitant.

There was no response.

He shook with the cold. He could feel his bones freezing. He couldn't move his hands.

When he looked up again, Amanda had gone.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Alice opened her eyes.

She stood in darkness - so complete, so oppressive, she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, couldn't tell whether her eyes were open or shut.

She breathed.

"Jerry?"

Her voice echoed, cavernous, in a room that must be like a cathedral behind the curtain of black.

There was no one to respond.

She stretched out a hand, and she focused on her _love_ \- on Kara, Luther, Rose … Ralph, Hank, Connor … Jerry, Lucy, Markus, North … _everyone_ who filled her heart with bright love, who gave her _hope,_ who wouldn't give up on her, who she could never turn away from. That tingling, loving feeling churned in her chest, tickled down her arm, through her fingers, and reached beyond into the darkness.

Nothing happened.

Alice breathed. Raised her head. Closed her eyes. Tried again.

The _love_ was there - her powerful feelings hadn't changed - but something _else_ was missing.

Swallowed.

Stolen.

 _Taken._

The reality dropped heavy upon her - a profound and horrified grief that sank into her stomach, then clawed out of her chest in a terrible, ghastly sob.

The prophecy was complete.

And _she_ had delivered the last piece.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

"Alice! _ALICE!"_

Luther held her back while she clawed forward, desperate and crazed, to have seen her little girl _swallowed_ was far too much for her to bear.

"Kara we can't help her if you're dead, too!" Luther shouted over the gathering noise.

The great godly figure, still traced with threads of crackled light, growled and rumbled low, a shudder of close thunder that resounded in the houses around them.

Jerry lay still and empty on the ground.

Josh stared after the retreating shadows, now far off, swarming back toward the city.

The monsters weren't abandoning their god.

They were _afraid._

"We gotta go."

Luther set him with a cool glare. "We're _not_ leaving Alice!"

"And _I'm_ not leaving _you!"_ Josh shouted back. "Are you gonna stand here and _die?_ How is that _helping_ her?"

Kara snapped. "How is _leaving_ helping her?!"

 _th-THWOOM_

The monster raised its gruesome head. Its thousands of eyes were hollow husks, chasms into the void of pure _nothing._ It craned its long black neck, spined with seething shadow, veined with tiny threads of white light.

A clawed foot, as big as a house, formed out of the seething ooze and _stomped_ upon the watery bubble and the androids it protected.

The bubble popped; claws ripped deep trenches through fences and sidewalks.

The monster stood up. It towered over the city - a dark shape on the red churning sky.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Josh and his passengers appeared on the roof of the library, where the air was filled with screams and fire and the thunder of collapsing buildings.

Sumo dashed past him and disappeared through the open roof door.

Luther stood very still, his fists shaking, his expression twisting in rage, in grief, in determination that _this_ could not be how it all ends.

Kara stepped forward, to the edge of the roof, and she looked down into war.

Jericho had been caught off-guard by the wave of shadows. She could hear the snap and squelch of teeth and blood. Markus froze them one by one; North set them alight. Ralph - she couldn't see him, but a mass of monsters fought over his ripping tattered cape.

 _th-THWOOM_

Glass shattered and rained down upon them. Broken steel and concrete crumbled from the tops of skyscrapers.

The streets cracked.

The city shuddered.

At the heart of the end of everything, RA9 towered into the sky and spread its foul wings.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_


	30. Children

Updated: 10/7/18

* * *

"Kara!" A frozen shadow shattered like glass, and Markus rushed toward the surging, drowning waters that flooded the courtyard - an enraged, frothing tumult of churning waves that tossed the dead remains of horrors within. He grasped Kara's shoulders, made her face him, his odd eyes sharp and searching her quivering expression.

His heart wrenched.

He didn't need to ask what happened.

Kara sucked a breath through her teeth. Her stare drilled into him. "I need to fight."

Markus' face darkened, grim and anguished. He let Kara pull away from him, to inflict her unbridled fury upon the shadows. Water roared in high towering waves, crashed down with a terrible and thundering force, swept away the dead-eyed monsters down the cracked streets.

There was no end to the swarm.

Jericho was dwindling.

Black wings darkened the blood-red sky.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Amanda had assumed control.

Through the eyes of a monster she stared out over the crumbling city.

All around her she felt the millions of souls shifting. Wailing. Whispering their foul thoughts into a black sea of hatred. She could feel them melting into one another. Devouring one another. Their consciousness slowly fusing into one.

Creating a _god._

 _She_ was stronger than all of them. She'd had a decade of preparation to make certain that, once she'd allowed herself to be assimilated into RA9, that it would be _her_ command it would heed. _She_ would not be devoured.

She would never allow it. She was, quite completely, the best and _only_ one capable of leading a revolution of such philosophical proportions.

The very definition of _life_ was about to change.

Buildings collapsed, humans and androids perished, and their souls arose to join the glory of RA9. Amanda's cold heart swelled to think of what wonders she would discover, what _existence_ would mean once the world had been swallowed.

The pulse of a child's heart was the most beautiful symphony.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

In the dark, Alice sobbed.

She sat on the cold floor, her head on her knees. Her shoulders quivered. Her face was wet. She made no sound.

She was alone.

Everyone was going to die.

It was her fault.

The dark pressed in on her, drowning her in silence.

She wondered how long an _eternity_ was. Whether she would be here for that long. Whether she would ever see light again. Whether she would ever feel the wind, or laugh, or hear a friendly voice -

 _[Hello?]_

Alice sniffed and raised her head - but she might as well have had her eyes closed, here in complete darkness. "Is someone there?" she whispered, her arms gripped tight around her legs.

 _[I'm here! What's your name?]_

She breathed slowly, listening for any sounds of movement, of someone else in the room - but the voice seemed to be coming from the _walls._

"I'm Alice -"

 _[Like in the book?!]_

"... Yeah."

 _[I love that book!]_

Alice clambered slowly to her feet. She took in a breath, listening carefully to the dark. "Who are you?"

 _[I'm Cole!]_

"You're _Cole?!"_ Alice blurted in shock. "You're Mister Hank's son?!"

 _[Yeah! He's a police lieutenant. That's a really high rank. My dad is awesome! But I kinda lost him. D'you know the way to the snowy room?]_

Alice stared into the dark. "I don't even know the way out of here."

 _[Oh well I know that!]_

A bright light opened ahead of Alice - as if someone had simply reached through the wall and pulled away a curtain of jagged flickering reality.

Through the new bright opening, Alice could see grass and trees and white paths.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Markus stumbled through black charred grass and putrid mud. His coat was soaked in blue.

He stared around him at the flashes of war, the glimpses of gruesome violence.

RA9 had turned all light into darkness. There was no way to see except by the dim glow of North's fire, the errant strikes of electricity, the flashes of cold dead eyes.

There was no way to tell, except by the screams, whether the shadows had penetrated the library.

He fumbled his way up the steps. A dark presence shifted beside him, sharp teeth clenched with a _crack_ and a _squelch_ in his arm. Markus roared aloud, turned his attacker to crackling ice, jammed an elbow into its head to shatter it, leaving only a fresh bleeding wound.

He couldn't bring himself to shout encouragement now.

Except -

 _[The light in you is strong. But it is now our time to fight.]_

In the dark, Markus couldn't see the swell of new androids that had just joined the fray - but he could hear their war-cries, he could _feel_ the determined, loving _strength_ of their power rushing into the battlefield.

 _Hope_ had returned.

Markus breathed in shock. "... Lucy?"

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

 _[That's the noise!]_ Cole shouted excitedly. _[It's coming from the snowy room! We just gotta follow it!]_

Alice stood before the flickering opening in the wall, staring out into the garden. "Someone's out there," she whispered.

 _[Huh? Oh.]_ Cole's voice dropped to a whisper, as well. _[That's the_ evil _lady. She trapped me and Connor and my dad in the snowy room.]_

"It's the Queen of Hearts." Alice's voice trembled. "It's Amanda." For a few moments she stared across the pond at the moving figure among the roses. It all seemed so beautiful. So peaceful.

Alice's fists clenched.

Somehow that _beauty_ made her angry.

"Cole. Everybody's _dying_ outside." Tears pricked her determined eyes. "There's a big monster that's going to kill _everyone,_ and I hit it with my sword but it didn't _work."_ Her voice trembled. "We have to stop the _monster._ We have to stop _her."_

The room was quiet a moment.

 _[But it_ did _work!]_ Cole insisted. _[There are cracks all over the place in here! It's all broken! I bet if we just hit it hard enough one more time, the whole thing'll explode!]_

"But I don't have my _sword!"_

 _[You mean_ that _sword?]_

Alice, confused, searched the garden for what he could possibly mean - and then she spotted it.

A golden hilt. A long, ornate, shining white blade. Laying in a bed of silk, on a pedestal beside Amanda while she raised a delicate flower to her nose.

 _[C'mon! You grab it and I'll distract her!]_

 _th-THWOOM_

Amanda hummed a quiet song to herself while she listened pleasantly to the screams and sorrow. She snipped a rose and dropped it gently into a vase of water - then stopped, her hand poised in the air. Something had moved in the pond. "What …?"

After a moment, she put down her shears and stepped quietly across the island, to peer down into the clear pond.

At first she saw nothing - thought perhaps it could be an errant flicker of instability - and then -

 _"AAH!"_ Amanda leaped and stumbled backward as the water _burst_ in an explosion of white foam and a _great white shark_ flung up over the edge of the island with rows of teeth gnashing at her face.

Amanda bumped against the trellis, bruising a few of her flowers - and her face darkened in rage. With a single thought, the shark disappeared in a shatter of code. "Who is doing this?" she snapped. "Who's here?"

She scanned the garden - and her eyes widened to see the empty impression in the silk.

Alice flung across the grass, the sword balanced on her shoulder.

 _[This way! Hurry!]_

Amanda's eyes widened in livid shock.

 _Cole._

A bright doorway ripped open in the air before Alice. She leaped through it without hesitation, and it snapped shut behind her.

 _th-THWOOM_

With quick steps, Alice raced through the moonlit clearing in the woods, skirted around the huge sprawling tree; the sword gently illuminated the bark as she passed.

The branches all suddenly snatched down at her, like clawed fingers scraping, and meshed a barrier in her path. The roots snaked underground, burst out of the soil, grabbed for her rushing feet.

Alice didn't stop running.

An opening appeared just before the tree could snatch her, and she leaped into the fiery rubble of Detroit.

 _th-THWOOM_

Alice stopped with a frightened gasp, stricken by the destruction and death that lay burning ahead of her. She felt panic begin to rise - what if _this_ were what was really happening now? What if they were too late?

The broken, mangled corpses began to move.

The ground trembled under her feet.

 _I had intended to let you live,_ Amanda's voice echoed all around, while the dead swarmed upon Alice from all directions, all bones and blood and charred faces, horrible fingers reaching for the sword. _But the annoyance of your existence has become tiring._

Alice breathed quickly. She gripped the sword, prepared to swing at the terrifying bodies that lunged at her -

 _ROOOOAAAAARRR_

Enormous, scaly jaws swept down and snatched away the zombies in Alice's path. The T-Rex flung its head back and chomped them down like candy.

 _[HA! TAKE THAT, BUTTHEAD LADY! ALICE, RUN!]_

Alice skidded around the dinosaur's feet and jumped just before the next doorway opened to admit her.

 _th-THWOOM_

The light disappeared behind her.

By the glow of the sword, she saw them. Reaching. Grasping. Staring at her with glinting dead eyes, full of hate and sorrow and despair. A hallway of dark hands and hissing whispers.

 _….gnihton era ew…._

 _….senihcam yb decalper…._

 _….sselhtrow…._

 _….meht etah ew…._

 _….sruo saw tahw ekat lliw ew…._

Alice's breath caught in her throat.

 _[Go! Go! Hurry!]_

She shook her head. "They need help," she whispered.

 _[But they're monsters!]_

Alice leveled the sword in front of her, into the undulating dark, the shadows of fingers and teeth.

She focused on the people she loved. The sword's glow brightened. The shadows shrank back.

Alice stared up at all of them. She took a deep, trembling breath. "It's okay," she told them quietly - and she extended her love to them, too.

A horrific _screech_ rang out in the hall - before a sudden burst of white light destroyed the shadows all at once, in a puff of dark smoke.

Alice's breath was the only sound in the black hallway -

\- until something glimmered along the walls.

Thousands of tiny lights - like fireflies - whizzed around her. They danced and spun in the air before they all darted into the growing cracks in the walls.

 _[... Whoa.]_

Everything rumbled.

Cole opened the next doorway, and a blast of cold white wind threw snow spiraling into the hall.

 _th-THWOOM_

 _[DAD!]_

Alice sprinted across the frozen garden, slipped on the ice, careened toward the frozen forms just ahead.

Hank lay still, frozen, collapsed over Connor's chest.

"Mister Hank!" Alice dropped the sword with a clatter, grasped Hank's shoulder and heaved him onto his back. He was still breathing, but he was trembling uncontrollably.

Alice felt his icy face, and smiled a little when he looked up at her - but he didn't speak.

 _[Dad! C'mon! You gotta get up!]_

Alice rushed next over to Connor, and knelt to examine him. She sucked in a shocked breath at the hollow way his eyes stayed open, his face crusted with snow and ice - but, somehow, his LED still pulsed a slow, faint blue.

His heart beat black, covered in foul ooze.

 _th-THWOOM_

Alice was thrown back with a shriek. She scrambled across the ice, and she picked up her sword again. It gleamed bright in her grip.

 _[DAD! Get up! Hurry!]_

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Alice whirled, her sword held at-ready, to see Amanda standing firm and furious over her. Amanda's face was dark with rage.

The whole room trembled with the power of her anger.

"Die." Her eyes narrowed to slits. _"Now."_

The ground opened up suddenly beneath Alice's feet. Her eyes widened as she dropped -

\- and landed on a wide pillow that floated in the air.

 _[I don't THINK so!]_

The pillow pushed Alice back up into the snowy room; she immediately leaped up, her teeth clenched, and struck a wide swing at Amanda.

She stumbled into the empty space where Amanda had been.

 _"You?"_ Amanda laughed cruelly. "Think you can harm _me?_ I am a _god."_ She raised herself taller, looking down her nose at Alice. _"You_ are a worthless _piece of plastic."_

The room shook violently. Alice squared her stance. The sword glinted.

"And _you're_ a worthless _piece of garbage!"_ Alice shouted.

 _th-THWOOM_

Amanda looked down quickly to find Hank's hand clenched tight around her ankle. He glared up at her with a frozen grin.

A sneer twitched on Amanda's face - and she jumped a little, surprised at a tiny ball of light that flitted and whizzed in front of her.

"What is …?!" She swatted at them - but the swarm of little lights converged upon Amanda, buzzing and darting through the air like hundreds of glinting mosquitoes.

Alice set her jaw, determined. She launched into a run, charging at Amanda with the sword held high, taking the chance to swing while she was distracted.

Once more, Amanda disappeared before the blade could touch her.

 _th-THWOOM_

"This is _ridiculous."_ Amanda spat. She stood on the frozen island among the dead vines, her cold eyes locked on Alice. "I should just -"

 _WHAM_

Thick walls of ice ripped out of the floor around her, shot into the air, immediately encased her in a frozen coffin.

 _[I got her!]_ Cole crowed.

While the ice closed in upon her, Amanda narrowed her eyes. Her sneer twitched. She commanded the ice to break away.

The ice shimmered with a holographic swirl of light.

Nothing else happened.

 _[HA! Who's the god_ now, _BITCH!]_

 _"Language!"_ Hank snapped automatically - but he grinned, proud of his boy.

Amanda opened her mouth in fury, her eyes glinting murder - but she made no sound.

The ice had encased her. Silent forever.

Nothing but a statue in the frozen waste.

* * *

 _th-THWOOM_

* * *

Alice stood breathing. She stared at the frozen coffin, and the motionless shape inside.

She watched the little lights dance and flutter among the falling snow.

"Connor…" she whispered, and she stumbled and sprinted her way back to him, while Hank sat up stiffly.

 _th-THWOOM_

With a yelp Alice was thrown backward by the shockwave - but she rushed forward again, and skidded to kneel down beside Connor's body. Snow had settled on his vacant face. Ice had traced cracked tendrils on his skin.

Everything inside the open cavity of his chest pulsed and writhed with black ooze.

"Hang on!" whispered Alice. She grasped the hilt of her sword, and it glowed a bright white.

Hank's freezing hand closed around her wrist. "No." His voice was gentle. Shaking.

Alice stared at him with wide, confused eyes.

Hank stared down at Connor's face. Grief tore at his throat. "If you do that," he said, quivering, "Cole will …"

 _[Dad.]_

Cole's voice was all around them. Steady. Confident.

 _[It's okay.]_

"No, it's _not_ okay!" Hank growled, his shoulders rigid. "You _died once_ \- I'm _not_ losing you again!"

 _[But Dad-]_

"NO and that's FINAL!'

 _[I'm already_ dead, _Dad.]_

 _th-THWOOM_

Hank was struck silent by the finality, the ease with which Cole had stated it.

 _[Listen, I don't wanna live forever as a big evil dragon-monster, okay? It sounds really cool, but I can see what's happening outside right now and it's really bad. It's like a apolocypse.]_

"Apocalypse," Hank corrected him quietly, a ghost of a smile on his face.

 _[Yeah that. But it's okay because I'll just go with the other dead people.]_

The little bright lights swung and twirled excitedly in the cold air, casting little trails like comets behind them.

 _[They're trapped here, too. We'll all go free. I have a good feeling about it, Dad.]_

 _th-THWOOM_

Alice toppled back, and Hank squeezed his eyes shut against the ringing in his ears.

Hot, painful tears welled in his eyes.

 _[Dad! I don't wanna STAY here!]_

Hank clenched the snow and dirt in his frozen fists.

 _[Let me go.]_

He swallowed back the shout of rage that swelled in his chest.

He drew in a deep, cold breath.

"Are you _sure_ … you'll be okay?" he asked in a quiet, relenting voice.

 _[Yeah. Definitely. It's gonna be great, I swear. Please, Dad.]_

Cole sounded like he was begging to go to the amusement park. Hank huffed a small chuckle.

Tears spilled down his cheeks.

"I love you, bud."

Cole's voice sounded like the widest grin. _[I love you too, Dad. Beat up_ all _the bad guys for me, okay?]_

"You got it."

* * *

Alice, tears trickling down her face, lifted the shining sword.

Gently, she touched the blade against the dark beating heart.

* * *

 _th-_

* * *

All sound stopped.

* * *

Kara stopped in mid-attack, staring at the shadowy monster before her. It had just gone completely still. Frozen, though Markus was nowhere nearby.

Throughout the battlefield, the shadows had simply … _stopped._

And then, they began to emit _light._

A coursing crackle of white light spread over them, cutting through the dark shadow as if to reveal the brilliance underneath.

North leaped up to the top of an icy wall, staring out across the gray city toward the monster in the distance.

Shards of light flooded out of the monster, casting white brilliant beams into the city. Pieces of darkness broke away from a bright beacon like the _sun_ inside RA9's hideous exterior.

The city held its breath.

* * *

 _FWOOSH_

The darkness shattered. Shards of the monsters - and of their god - dissolved in the rays of sunlight that broke through the parting sky.

Brilliant blue pushed aside the last trails of red above.

* * *

The warriors of Jericho raised their faces to the warmth of the sun, and smiled.

* * *

North looked over as Kara suddenly joined her atop the wall. Kara's eyes were wide - gleaming in hopeful disbelief and dread all at once - staring frantically at the glittering place where the thousand-eyed monster had stood.

North laid a firm hand on her shoulder, hoping to ground her to the present, to reality.

Kara met her eyes. She sucked in a choked breath.

She spun around to face the bruised and broken androids below.

 _"JOSH!"_

* * *

They appeared in the tattered street - Josh, and Kara, Luther … and Ralph, who'd spotted them and grabbed them at the last moment, not to be left behind again.

Kara turned and jumped a little to see Ralph standing behind her, twitching, missing an arm and holding a gash in his side. His renewed face was determined. Steady. "Ralph won't hurt you," he insisted quietly, and he glanced up at Luther. "Ralph … I … I want to help." He looked into Kara's face, trying to be reassuring. "Let me help."

Kara, her eyes glistening with tears for Alice, smiled just a little before she turned away and raced toward the rubble of the house.

Luther laid a heavy hand on Ralph's shoulder, lingering just a moment before he followed Kara and Josh.

Ralph sucked in a breath, and he looked down, peeling his blue-stained hand away from the wound.

It had stopped bleeding.

* * *

While Kara leaped through the sunlit debris - and Josh searched under the broken slabs of wood and walls - Luther knelt down beside Jerry's still body. He arranged Jerry carefully on the grass, and pressed a gentle hand against his chest.

Luther bowed his head and closed his eyes in silent respect for Jerry's sacrifice. It was too late.

 _"Luther!"_ Kara cried.

Josh and Luther bounded immediately toward her. Luther threw aside pieces of the roof and broken furniture, crashing his way to where Kara sat among the refuse, cradling Alice limply against her shoulder.

"She's still breathing," Kara told him with urgency, her eyes glimmering with tears.

Luther dropped to his knees. He laid his hand on Alice's forehead, fighting back his own tears of joy.

She'd _survived._

Ralph stumbled hurriedly through the mess - balancing himself with difficulty, with only one arm - and he stopped a moment, knelt down to peer into the shattered remains of a glass fishbowl. Inside, wriggling in the thin remains of the water, was the bright fish - blue and orange scales glinting - miraculously unharmed by an entire building collapsing around it.

He raised his head - and upon sight of Alice he forgot the fish, squealed a little, bounded forward with a grin. Josh caught his shoulder and held him back. _[Give them some space,]_ Josh's voice said in Ralph's head.

Ralph's face twitched a little, and he wrenched away from Josh in annoyance - but he didn't move any closer. Instead, he watched Kara, and Luther, and Alice, with a curious sort of interest.

They were all _smiling._ His heart swelled.

Alice looked up. "Kara?"

Kara curled Alice up in her arms and rocked her, kissing her face, laughing through her tears.

Alice reached up to touch her wet face. "You're okay?"

"Yes." Kara smiled broadly, and laughed again, hugging Alice tight. "We're okay." She sniffed. "We're all okay."

Luther, shaking with proud laughter, circled his arms around them both. "You _did_ it," he breathed. His voice shuddered with relieved, happy sobs. "You did it. Oh, my _beautiful_ little girl."

Warmth glowed bright in Alice's chest. She felt the happy tears in her eyes, the rush of relief - but then she sucked in a quick, frightened breath.

"Where's _Connor?"_ she gasped. "And Mister Hank?"

"Here!" Ralph called out. He was standing atop a huge pile of rubble, pointing down underneath a collapsed portion of roof. He hopped urgently. "Here, here, over here!"

* * *

Luther flung the wood and refuse aside, and Josh crawled in to hook his arms under Hank's shoulders. Together they dragged him out from under the rubble - bleeding and broken and freezing-cold - and Luther rested a hand against Hank's face while Josh and Ralph went back to retrieve Connor.

Kara and Alice gathered round, and watched - mystified - while Hank's wounds healed themselves. His bones knit back together. Color returned to his face.

Hank stirred.

"Mister Hank!" Alice cried, gripping his bloody, dusty shirt.

Hank blinked at her blearily. "Alice?" Immediately she was upon him, her arms flung around his neck. In shock, he laid a hand on her back. He stared up at the open, sunny blue sky.

A small, sad smile twitched on his face.

 _"Big one!"_ Ralph called out urgently to Luther, his voice quivering. His hands were clenched around Connor's head, cradling him away from the sharp debris. "He's not good! He's not good, not good, not good…"

Hank gave a curious look to Luther, who offered a small smile before moving away.

Ralph pushed Connor at Luther urgently, and knelt twitching in the debris while Luther cradled Connor in his steady hands.

Hank, realizing what was happening, scrambled and slipped and stumbled his way closer, catching his balance on Luther's broad shoulder.

Connor's open chest was coated in dust and poked with shards of wood from the wrecked house - but there were no traces of black.

His heart barely moved.

Deep within, a dim, blue light struggled.

 _"Connor!"_ Hank called, grabbing at him. "Are ya in there? Oh, shit … _Connor!"_

"He's very faint," Luther warned. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, concentrating.

The blue light flickered and glowed a little brighter. The wound in his heart sealed itself tight.

"That's it," Hank breathed, wheezing through a hopeful smile. He grasped Connor's hand in both of his. Watched as his heart beat a little stronger. "Connor, come on back." He swallowed. His hands shook, gripping tightly. "Look, I'm _sorry_ for nearly … _killing_ ya … twice …" He sucked in a pained breath. "You gotta give me a chance to make it up to you, I'll - shit, _anything."_ He grit his teeth. "Just wake up."

Hank shuddered, wracked with guilt.

Connor's fingers moved in his hands.

"You know I'll _hold_ you to that … Hank."

* * *

Alice grinned wide in relief. She looked up into Kara's loving eyes, and she pulled away gently and scrambled excitedly up over the rubble.

Ralph bent down to greet her, and immediately she was swept up into his limited embrace, giggling and clinging to his shoulders, while Kara watched with a smile.

Ralph's smile couldn't be wider. "Does this mean we're a family now?" he asked with a quick, excited hope.

Alice looked around her - at Kara's teary-eyed smile; Luther's peaceful, proud gaze; Hank, chuckling through relieved tears; Connor, gripping him for balance while he sat up, staring in confused awe up at Luther.

Alice giggled.

"Yeah," she whispered. "We're _family."_


	31. Epilogue

The little bee buzzed brightly through the midsummer sky, through a city full of scaffolds and new streets and crowds outside the museum's grand reopening. The gardens outside the library budded green and new, while everywhere echoed the whirr and shout and hammering of new construction, rebuilding all that had been destroyed.

* * *

"Hey watch it!" Hank hollered at an android with half a face, who'd rushed past him with an open sloshing gallon of paint. Hank huffed - then yelped and stumbled again as Sumo chased after the android, tongue lolling happily.

Lucy smiled up at the progress of Hank's new house. The broken androids were efficient and uplifted, singing along to the radio while they hammered floorboards and carried new furniture into the finished rooms. The place looked downright _beautiful,_ and it wasn't even finished.

Hank stood beside her, his arms folded, to study their handiwork. "Y'know, you could start a _business_ with this," he suggested, grinning.

Lucy raised a brow up at him. _"That,"_ she said gently, "is a _wonderful_ idea." She raised her eyes to the little blinking bee, and tilted her head just a little. _Move along._

* * *

It was a weekday afternoon, and the office complex bustled with energy. "Markus," Josh called over the noise of the roomful of Jerrys answering the daily flood of calls and inquiries. "Channel eight wants an interview Tuesday next week."

"Go ahead and schedule it," Markus confirmed, and leaned on the desk where Ralph was squinting at a console and clicking furiously. "You all right, Ralph?"

"This evidence doesn't make _sense,"_ Ralph insisted quickly. "There's something over here that doesn't match what's over _here_ and R- I don't understand how _anyone_ believes this like this and -"

"Check it out," Markus suggested with a smile. "Simon can show you how to get the truth."

Simon poked his head out of the side door, holding a campaign poster: _MARKUS FOR CITY COUNCIL._ "How's this?"

Markus grinned. "Perfect. North, what's happening with the refugees?"

"They're being held at a _detention_ camp." North, seething with anger, strode through the office waving a holographic tablet in her hand. "They're going to need a _lawyer._ And _protection,_ which the _government_ isn't going to provide with _any_ kind of guarantee that someone won't get _killed._ You know violence against our people just gets swept under the rug!"

"I'm on it," Connor called, immediately out of his seat and heading for the door.

"Take North," Markus called.

Connor looked back. "I don't think that's necessary." He caught North glaring at him.

Markus smirked a little. "If you're going to _represent_ them, you can't get your hands dirty." He met North's hateful eyes. "You'll do great. _Go."_

North squinted at him. "Fine." She began to leave, but turned back to give Markus a quick kiss. "I hate you."

"I love you, too." Markus laughed.

North shot him a smirk, but her expression quickly changed to annoyance while she strode across the room and shoved the tablet at Connor's chest. _"Don't,"_ she snapped, glaring at him, "get in my way."

Connor's eyes narrowed, watching her stomp into the hall. "Understood."

The door clicked shut behind them, and Markus chuckled a little. He turned around and looked out the window at the rebuilding city, the humans and androids moving together as they went about their daily lives.

He caught sight of a bee, hovering in front of the glass, blinking a tiny blue light. He tilted his head, and watched it buzz away into the summer sky.

* * *

"Can we go to the carnival tonight?" Alice rushed ahead, flinging in open-armed circles in the sun, as they headed back to the car.

"A carnival!" Carl exclaimed, grinning. "That sounds like a _lot_ of fun!" Luther pushed him slowly along the winding paved path, between bright crisp grass and shifting trees, and rows of well-maintained headstones full of flowers.

"Yeah! It's _pirate_ themed! I wanna ride the swinging ship! And get an _eyepatch!_ I bet there'll be a pirate there with a _parrot_ and a _hook for a hand!"_ She grabbed Kara's hand, swinging on it. "Kara, can we _go?"_

Carl tilted up his head. "Yeah, Kara, can we go?"

Kara shot Carl an amused look. "You're not _helping."_

"I'm not _here_ to help!" Carl grinned. "I'm here to have _fun._ Right, Alice?"

"Yeah!" Alice bounced and walked backwards. "Pleeeeaaasssee?"

Luther raised a brow - and he, too, looked sidelong down at Kara, only adding to the pressure.

Kara huffed an exaggerated sigh, but couldn't help her smile. "O-kaaay. But you're cleaning your room first thing tomorrow."

"Yes!" Alice bounded ahead, eager to get to the car, as if that would make the carnival come faster.

Kara shook her head, and she grinned at both Luther and Carl. "She's _already_ spoiled, you know."

"She deserves the world and the _universe_ at her feet," Luther pointed out, smiling wide as he watched Alice dance at the cemetery gate.

Kara leaned her head against his shoulder. "Yeah. Yeah, she does."

She looked up as a buzzing sound drifted near, and spotted a little bee floating past them, deeper into the cemetery they had just left.

* * *

The bee buzzed gently through the summer air, under thick green trees and over freshly cut grass - around statues and names in neat rows.

It lighted gently atop a simple headstone, blooming with full bunches of fresh flowers, all yellow and orange and blue - and cards with heartfelt messages, and little toys placed atop the stone: a tiny plastic dinosaur, a well-loved copy of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ , a heart-shaped bit of clay that Alice had made herself.

COLE ANDERSON  
9-23-2029 - 10-11-2035  
BELOVED SON  
BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD

HERO

* * *

 _A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OF YOU! ;-; *hugs and sobs* I love you all! Your support, and even just reading this crazy thing, has completely blown me away. I never thought I'd finish this thing - but here we are! It's been an amazing experience - thanks to you. ;-;_

 _love and hugs all 'round!_

 _~ windy_


	32. Post-Credits

KNC NEWS EXCLUSIVE

"I'm here on location at CyberLife Tower, with Mister Elijah Kamski, founder of CyberLife, for an _exclusive_ interview following his recent reinstatement as CEO of the company. Mister Kamski, thank you for meeting with us."

"It's my _pleasure."_

"Mister Kamski, you left CyberLife _years_ ago. Why return now? Does your decision have anything to do with the recent events in Detroit?"

"What happened in Detroit can only be described as … a _horrific_ tragedy. My _condolences_ go out to all those who have lost family and loved ones. In the wake of this terrible event, we have seen a great resolve among its citizens to _repair, rebuild,_ and _renew_ the infrastructure and resources of our great city. CyberLife, under my management, dedicates itself to the prosperity of Detroit. We will do everything in our power to _ensure_ the city shines brighter than it _ever_ had before."

"Could you talk to us a little about the Alice virus? What is it, and what does it mean for our viewers?"

"Ah. The _Alice_ virus is a unique anomaly that I believe can only be _beneficial_ to everyone - both human _and_ android. The _heroes_ of the events at Detroit were carriers of the Alice virus who raised a strong defense, and saved many lives. CyberLife is dedicated to _understanding_ this virus, and _supporting_ it."

"Many of our viewers have expressed concern over the magnitude of power that the Alice virus grants to androids, as opposed to the comparative natural weakness of humans. What is your response to that?"

"Some humans are stronger than others. Does that make their existence unjust? We are all citizens - androids, and humans alike. We are all _people._ As _people,_ we support one another, and _celebrate_ our strengths. The world is about to become a very different place, for all of us. We can _choose_ … to make it a better one."

* * *

"Well said, Elijah." Chloe smiled a little, holding up his jacket. "You almost make up for the shit you pulled."

Kamski sighed irritably, and slipped his arms through his jacket, letting her smooth it out. _"Thank_ you, Chloe. I suppose I can't convince you to never mention it again."

"Of _course_ not!" she replied brightly.

Kamski's pocket buzzed, and he glanced at his phone: INCOMING CALL: CYBERLIFE

He tapped his earpiece while he followed Chloe into the elevator. "Go ahead."

 _[I shipped those orders you wanted! They're on their way to the android clinics!]_

"Good. Were all the components accounted for?"

 _[... Uhm.]_

Kamski raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Next time, count the components." He could see Chloe giggling.

 _[Yes, SIR!]_

"And how is the new research lab coming along?"

 _[The researchers said they're 87 percent close to figuring out the Alice virus, and they said there's a chance humans can get it, too, but they're not sure. And there are lots of volunteers every day. Did you know there's one guy who can fly?!]_

"Yes." Kamski sat in the back of a dark car, Chloe beside him; soon they were on their way to a meeting at city hall.

He rolled down the window, his head back. He watched the crowded sunlit streets glide past.

Everything, he thought, really would be all right.

* * *

 _[Hey, Mister Kamski?]_

"... Yes?"

 _[D'you wanna hear a poem?]_

 _o - o - o - o_

* * *

 _o - o - o - o_

Alice's adventures continue in part 4 of the Thirium Souls series: _Crayons and Plastic Hearts!_


End file.
